Citation
The story of a bad boy

Material Information

Title:
The story of a bad boy
Creator:
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907
Frost, A. B ( Arthur Burdett ), 1851-1928 ( Illustrator )
Houghton, Mifflin and Company ( Publisher )
Riverside Press (Cambridge, Mass.)
H.O. Houghton & Company
Place of Publication:
Boston ;
New York
Cambridge
Publisher:
Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Riverside Press
Manufacturer:
Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton and Company
Publication Date:
Copyright Date:
1894
Language:
English
Physical Description:
xiii, 286 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Boys -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Friendship -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Practical jokes -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Grandfathers -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Slaves -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Children and death -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Family stories -- 1895 ( local )
Genre:
Family stories ( local )
novel ( marcgt )
Spatial Coverage:
United States -- Massachusetts -- Boston
United States -- New York -- New York
United States -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge
Target Audience:
juvenile ( marctarget )

Notes

Summary:
These boyhood adventures of a mischievous lad in nineteenth-century New England are based on the author's own experiences. This "Northern man with Southern principles" was sent from New Orleans to Massachusetts to live with his grandfather.
General Note:
Title page printed in red and black.
Statement of Responsibility:
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich ; illustrated by A.B. Frost.

Record Information

Source Institution:
University of Florida
Holding Location:
University of Florida
Rights Management:
This item is presumed to be in the public domain. The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries respect the intellectual property rights of others and do not claim any copyright interest in this item. Users of this work have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing this item for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions may require permission of the copyright holder. The Smathers Libraries would like to learn more about this item and invite individuals or organizations to contact The Department of Special and Area Studies Collections (special@uflib.ufl.edu) with any additional information they can provide.
Resource Identifier:
026576982 ( ALEPH )
ALG1820 ( NOTIS )
02651376 ( OCLC )
13012929 ( LCCN )

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Full Text




The Baldwin Library











“ My name’s Tom Bailey ; what’s your name ?”



THE STORY OF
A BAD BOY

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
ILLUSTRATED BY
A. B. FROST



BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Che Viverside Press, Cambridge
M DCCC XCV



Copyright, 1869, 1877, and 1894,
By THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

Copyright, 1894,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO,

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co,



A PREFACE, IN WHICH THE AUTHOR
DECLINES TO WRITE ONE

; THE Publishers of the pres-
| ent new edition of THE Story
| or A Bap Boy have requested
my agency in the matter of
| procuring from the author
x1) a few lines by way of intro-





=== duction. It seems to me
that the Bad Boy requires no introduction to
a public that has tolerated him for upwards
of twenty years. Moreover, I am no believer
in-prefaces. The author who has not been
able in the course of several hundred pages
to say what he had to say is not likely to
accomplish that. feat in narrower compass.
On consulting with the Bad Boy, I find this
to be the view which he himself entertains.
He claims that he faithfully performed the
modest task he undertook, and is rot con-



7 PREFACE

scious that anything in the narrative requires
elucidation. As he concerned himself with
little that did not come within the sphere of
his own experience, he ran less risk of mak-
ing mistakes than if he had attempted to
write pure fiction. A generous destiny pro-
vided him with ample materials for his auto-
biography, and he invented next to nothing.
The statement of this fact incidentally and
economically answers the fifteen hundred or
two thousand insidious letters which have
been addressed to him by autograph-hunters
desiring to know whether “ The Story of a
Bad Boy” was a true story.

These are points, however, on which the
author would probably not touch, could he
be induced to write a preface. He would
deal, rather, with the subsequent fate of the
characters who lend what life there is to his
little seaport comedy. With one exception
they all have made their exit from that larger
stage on which they moved more or less suc-
cessfully. The exception is the Hon. Pepper



PREFACE v

Whitcomb. The newspapers, which relieve
our Chief Magistrates from the embarrass-
ment of selecting cabinet officers, foreign
ministers, collectors of the port, and other
high public functionaries — the newspapers,
I repeat, are at the present moment engaged
in putting Pepper Whitcomb into the next
vacancy that may occur on the bench of the
Supreme Court of the United States. The
historian of Rivermouth could have made
much of this dignified circumstance, and
much, also, of the singular fact that the old
Temple Grammar School building was de-
stroyed by fire, a number of years ago, in
precisely the manner foretold in the story:
a coincidence worth dwelling on. Perhaps,
too, the author, with the chronic weakness
peculiar to preface-writers — that sudden
impulse which seizes them to give their own
case away — might have been led to confess
a doubt touching his'wisdom in calling the
book “ The Story of a Bad Boy.” He wished
simply to draw a line at the start between



vi PREFACE

his hero—a natural, actual boy — and that
unwholesome and altogether improbable lit-
tle prig which had hitherto been held up as
an example to the young. The title of the
volume has doubtless turned aside many
excellent persons who would have found
nothing seriously reprehensible in the volume
itself. On the other hand, this lurid title
may have invited the curiosity of the vicious
and depraved, and trapped them into reading
an entirely harmless story. In which case
the author may felicitate himself on sowing
a seed in the wider field, for the vicious out-
number the virtuous ten to one. Besides,
the virtuous need no missionary.

As the author has never evinced the faint-
est regret in connection with the title chosen,
he probably feels none, and it would be idle
on my part to give further chase to a mere
conjecture.

The poet Wordsworth, assisted by Plautus,
maintains — to the everlasting confusion of
Mr. Darwin — that “the good die first.”



PREFACE uae

Perhaps this explains why the Bad Boy has
survived so many good boys in the juvenile
literature of the last two decades. It only
partly explains it, however. The secret of
his persistence may be stated without cast-
ing any shadow upon the general respec-
tability of his character. Indeed, the secret
was long ago kindly disclosed by Mr. How-
ells' when he said: “ No one else seems to
have thought of telling the story of a boy’s
life with so great desire to show what a boy’s
life is, and with so little purpose of teaching
what it should be; certainly no one else has
thought of doing this for the American boy.”

At the period when the author penned
these chapters he was far enough away from
his boyhood to regard it in retrospect, and
yet not so far removed as to be beyond the
lightest touch of its glamour. His attitude
was wholly without self-consciousness; no
photographer of manners had told him to
“look natural;” he did not have one eye on

1 In The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1870.



viii PREFACE
his inkstand and the other on his public.
He had a message, such as it was, and he
delivered it with as good grace as he could. .
If he wrote with little art, he wrote with suf-
ficient sincerity, and it so chanced that he
appealed directly not only to the sense of
youthful readers, but to the sympathy of such
men and women as still remembered that
they once were young.

To these two classes the author again of-
fers his unpretentious chronicle, now enriched
by sixty designs from the pencil of Mr. A. B.
Frost, but otherwise unchanged. The writer
tells me that in supervising the sheets for
the press he has a hundred times been
tempted to recast a page or a paragraph ;
but there was a morning bloom upon the
faulty text, a bloom that he could not touch
without destroying—a nameless quality of
unknowing youth, impossible to recapture,
and for the lack of which no later art could
compensate. T. B.A,

Tue Crags,
Tenant's Harbor, Maine,



CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN wHicH I INTRODUCE MYSELF. . ‘ . I

II. IN wHicu I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS . ‘ 5
III. On BoarD THE TYPHOON . . : : : . 12
IV. RIVERMOUTH . : : : : : 7 : 22

V. Tue Nurrer HousE AND THE NUTTER FAMILY . 34

VI. LicuTs AND SHADOWS . . : . 7 : 48
VII. ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT . : : : . - 71
VIII. THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH . . 7 : 87
IX. I BECOME ANR.M.C. . : : : ° - IOI

X. IÂ¥Ficgur Conway . : : . . . - 12

XI, ALL ABOUT Gypsy . : : : : ° . 124
XII. WINTER AT RIVERMOUTH . . . + 8 133
XIII, THe SNow-Fort ON SLATTER’s HILL. . - 141
XIV. THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN. . . - 155
XV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP : : . 178
XVI. IN WHICH SAILOR BEN sPINS A YARN . 7 - 193
XVII. How WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 2 . « 209
XVIII. A Froc HE wouLD A-WOOING GO . . 2 228
XIX. I BECOME A BLIGHTED BEING . : . . « 246

XX. IN wHIcH I prove MYSELF 10 BE THE GRANDSON
or My GRANDFATHER . . . : + 255
XXI. IN wuicH I LEAVE RIVERMOUTH . 7 . - 274
XXII. Exeunr OMNES. . . . . . . 281






LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
“My name’s Tom Bailey; what’s yourname?” voutispiece

Not a Cherub : . I
Judge Pepper Whitcomb. . . . . : . 3
Black Sam . . . . . . . . ° » 5
My Indian Ancestor. . ; . oe . . 8

“Tom, you will be the death of me” . . . . Pn)

The Captain . . . . . : . . . . 13
Playing Checkers . 2. eee eee 6
In the Forecastle . . . . . . . . . 19
A Glimpse of the Battle. . . . . . . + 25
The Vanishing Landlord. . : : . . : 29
“ Miss Jocelyn’s respectful compliments” . . . » 33
A Fine Black Eye . . : . . ee ee 8

A Rainy Afternoon in the Garret. 7 . : . - 39
Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins. 8 ee nr )
Waiting for the Conflagration . . . . . . + 49
Mr. Grimshaw : . : . . . . 7 : 53
Swallowing the Candy. . see eee 8G
The Drama of William Tell . 7 7 7 : : . 63
Crushed . : : 7 : . . . . . . 67
Mr. Grimshaw looked Queer. : se . . : 73
The Interrupted Celebration . . . . : . . 8
“What would you do?” . . . . . 7 . 85
“Miscreants unknown” . . « «© © + + «+ 88
“Are you hurt?” . ar eee



xil LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Perfection of Pith and Poetry
The Result of the Explosion .
Gently checked .

The Initiation . . °
Charley Marden exhumed . 7
Preparing for the Battle . .
Phil Adams shaking Hands. .
Afterwards. : : :
Rev. Wibird Hawkins and Poll
Gypsy’s Lunch

Prize No. 2 . . : . .
Talking over the Great Storm
Eating His Apple

Kitty and Tom enjoying the Joke
The Commanders

Holding the Fort on Slatter’s Hill
The Unsuccessful Attack .

I faced Captain Nutter .

On Sandpeep Island . . . .
Drifting Away : . : .
The Telegraph . . 7 . .
A Midnight Call

Introducing Sailor Ben. . .

“ Lookin’ for a job?” :
Settling the Land Shark’s Account .
In the Cabin .

Cleaning Her Out. : . .
Miss Abigail awakes. . :
Bailey’s Battery booming. . .
The Discovery : ‘ . .
The Last Evening . 8

Removing the Spermaceti . .

96

99
103
105
109
IIS
118
11g

. 125

127

. 130

135
137
139

. 144

149
153
158

+ 163

169

. 181

184

. 189

196

- 199

205

- 214

221
222
231
240
243



LIST OF

In Love

The Cherub .

Iam a Blighted Being
The Admiral on Guard
Playing “Seven Up”
The Near-Sighted Man
My First Grief .

The Last of Gypsy

«

ILLUSTRATIONS

xiii

. 247

250

+ 251

262

. 267

271

+ 276

282






THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I INTRODUCE MYSELF

Tus is the story of
a bad boy. Well, not
such a very bad, but a
pretty bad boy; and I
ought to know, for I
am, or rather I was,
that boy myself.

Lest the title should
mislead the reader, I
hasten to assure him
here that I have no
dark confessions to
make. I call my story
the story of a bad boy,
partly to distinguish
myself from those
faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in
narratives of this kind, and partly because I really
was zot a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an
amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine - digestive
powers, and no hypocrite. I did not want to be
an angel and with the angels stand; I did not



Not a Cherub



2 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

think the missionary tracts presented to me by
the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were half so nice as
Robinson Crusoe; and I failed to send my little
pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands,
but spent it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy
candy. In short, I was a real human boy, such as
you may meet anywhere in New England, and no
more like the impossible boy in a story-book than
a sound orange is like one that has been sucked
dry. But let us begin at the beginning.
Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I
used to confront him at recess with the following
words: “My name’s Tom Bailey; what’s your
name?” If the name struck me favorably, I
shook hands with the new pupil cordially; but if
it did not, I would turn on my heel, for I was
particular on this point. Such names as Higgins,
Wiggins, and Spriggins were deadly affronts to
my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the
like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.
Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather
elderly boys by this time — lawyers, merchants,
sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not? Phil
Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul
at Shanghai, where I picture him to myself with
his head closely shaved —he never had too much
hair—and a long pigtail hanging down behind.
He is married, I hear ; and I hope he and she that
was Miss Wang Wang are very happy together,
sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of



IN WHICH I INTRODUCE MYSELF 3

tea in a sky-blue tower hung with bells. It is so
I think of him; to me he is henceforth a jeweled
mandarin, talking nothing
but broken China. Whit-
comb is a judge, sedate and
wise, with spectacles bal-
anced on the bridge of that
remarkable nose which, in
former days, was so plenti-
fully sprinkled with freckles
that the boys christened him
Pepper Whitcomb. Just to
think of little Pepper Whit-
comb being a judge ! What
would he do to me now, I
wonder, if I were to sing out “Pepper!” some
day in court? Fred Langdon is in California, in
the native-wine business— he used to make the
best licorice-water / ever tasted! Binny Wallace
sleeps in the Old South Burying-Ground; and
Jack Harris, too, is dead — Harris, who com-
manded us boys, of old, in the famous snow-ball]
battles of Slatter’s Hill. Was it yesterday I saw
him at the head of his regiment on its way to join
the shattered Army of the Potomac? Not yes-
terday, but six years ago. It was at the battle
of the Seven Pines. Gallant Jack Harris, that
never drew rein until he had dashed into the
Rebel battery! So they found him — lying across
the enemy’s guns.



Fudge Pepper Whitcomb



4 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

How we have parted, and wandered, and mar-
ried, and died! I wonder what has become of all
the boys who went to the Temple Grammar
School at Rivermouth when I was a youngster ?

“ All, all are gone, the old familiar faces ! ”

It is with no ungentle hand I summon them
back, for a moment, from that Past which has
closed upon them and upon me. How pleas-
antly they live again in my memory! Happy,
magical Past, in whose fairy atmosphere even
Conway, mine ancient foe, stands forth transfig-
ured, with a sort of dreamy glory encircling his
bright red hair !

With the old school formula I begin these
sketches of my boyhood. My name is Tom Bailey ;
what is yours, gentle reader? I take for granted
that itis neither Wiggins nor Spriggins, and that
we shall get on famously together, and be capital
friends forever.



CHAPTER II
IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN ‘PECULIAR VIEWS

I was born at Rivermouth, but, before I hada
chance to become very well acquainted with that
pretty New England town, my parents removed
to New Orleans, where my father invested his
money so securely in the banking business that
he was never able to get more than half of it out
again. But of this hereafter.

I was only eighteen months old at the time of
the removal, and it did not make much difference
to me where I
was, because I
was so. small;
but several years
later, when my
father proposed
to take me North
to be educated, I
had my own pe-
culiar views on
the subject. I instantly kicked over the little
negro boy who happened to be standing by me
at the moment, and, stamping my foot violently
on the floor of the piazza, declared that I would



Black Sam



6 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

not be taken away to live among a lot of Yan-
kees !

You see I was what is called “a Northern man
with Southern principles.” I had no recollection
of New England: my earliest memories were con-
nected with the South, with Aunt Chloe, my old
negro nurse, and with the great ill-kept garden in
the centre of which stood our house—a white-
washed brick house it was, with wide verandas —
shut out from the street by lines of orange, fig,
and magnolia trees. I knew I was born at the
North, but hoped nobody would find it out. I
looked upon the misfortune as something so
shrouded by time and distance that maybe nobody
remembered it. I never told my schoolmates I
was a Yankee, because they talked about the
Yankees in such a scornful way as to make me
feel that it was quite a disgrace not to be born in
Louisiana, or at least in one of the Border States.
And this impression was strengthened by Aunt
Chloe, who said, “ Dar ain’t no gentl’men in the
Norf noway,”’ and on one occasion terrified me
beyond measure by declaring: “If any of dem
mean whites tries to git me away from marster,
I’s jes’ gwine to knock ’em on de head wid a
gourd!”

The way this poor creature’s eyes flashed, and
the tragic air with which she struck at an imagi-
nary “mean white,” are among the most vivid
things in my memory of those days.



IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS 7

To be frank, my idea of the North was about as
accurate as that entertained by the well-educated
Englishmen of the present day concerning Amer-
ica. I supposed the inhabitants were divided into
two classes — Indians and white people; that the
Indians occasionally dashed down on New York,
and scalped any woman or child (giving the pref-
erence to children) whom they caught lingering in
the outskirts after nightfall; that the white men
were either hunters or schoolmasters, and that it
was winter pretty much all the year round. The
prevailing style of architecture I took to be log-
cabins.

With this delightful picture of Northern civili-
zation in my eye, the reader will easily understand
my terror at the bare thought of being transported
to Rivermouth to school, and possibly will forgive
me for kicking over little black Sam, and other-
wise misconducting myself, when my father an-
nounced his determination to me. As for kicking
little Sam —I always did that, more or less gen-
tly, when anything went wrong with me.

‘My father was greatly perplexed and troubled
by this unusually violent outbreak, and especially
by the real consternation which he saw written
in every line of my countenance. As little black
Sam picked himself up, my father took my hand
in his and led me thoughtfully to the library.

I can see him now as he leaned back in the
bamboo chair and questioned me. He appeared



8 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

strangely agitated on learning the nature of my
objections to going North, and proceeded at once
to knock down all my pine-log houses, and scatter
all the Indian tribes with
which I had populated the
greater portion of the East-
ern and Middle States.

“Who on earth, Tom,
has filled your brain with
such silly stories ?”” asked
my father, wiping the tears
from his eyes.

“Aunt Chloe, sir; she
told me.”

“ And you really thought
your grandfather wore a
blanket embroidered with
beads, and ornamented his
leggings with the scalps of
his enemies ?”

“Well, sir, I didn’t think that exactly.”

“Didn't think that exactly? Tom, you will be
the death of me.”

He hid his face in his handkerchief, and, when
he looked up, he seemed to have been suffering
acutely. I was deeply moved myself, though I did
not clearly understand what I had said or done to
cause him to feel so badly. Perhaps I had hurt his
feelings by thinking it even possible that Grand-
father Nutter was an Indian warrior.



po oS. —
My Indian Ancestor





IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS 9

My father devoted that evening and several sub-
sequent evenings to giving me a clear and succinct
account of New England; its early struggles, its
progress, and its present condition — faint and con-
fused glimmerings of all which I had obtained at
school, where history had never been a favorite
pursuit of mine.

—



“ Tom, you will be the death of me”

I was no longer unwilling to go North; on the
contrary, the proposed journey to a new world full
of wonders kept me awake nights. I promised
myself all sorts of fun and adventures, though I
was not entirely at rest in my mind touching the



10 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

savages, and secretly resolved to go on board the
ship — the journey was to be made by sea—with
a certain little brass pistol in my trousers pocket,
in case of any difficulty with the tribes when we
landed at Boston.

I could not get the Indian out of my head.
Only a short time previously the Cherokees — or
was it the Camanches ?— had been removed from
their hunting-grounds in Arkansas; and in the
wilds of the Southwest the red men were still a
source of terror to the border settlers. ‘Trouble
with the Indians”? was the staple news from
Florida published in the New Orleans papers. We
were constantly hearing of travelers being attacked
and murdered in the interior of that State. If
these things were done in Florida, why not in
Massachusetts ?

Yet long before the sailing day arrived I was
eager to be off. My impatience was increased by
the fact that my father had purchased for mea fine
little mustang pony, and shipped it to Rivermouth
a fortnight previous to the date set for our own
departure —for both my parents were to accom-
pany me. The pony (which nearly kicked me out
of bed one night in a dream), and my father’s
promise that he and my mother would come to
Rivermouth every other summer, completely re-
signed me to the situation. The pony’s name
was Gitana, which is the Spanish for gypsy; so I
always called her — she was a lady pony — Gypsy.



IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS II

At last the time came to leave the vine-cov-
ered mansion among the orange-trees, to say good-
by to little black Sam (I am convinced he was
heartily glad to get rid of me), and to part with
simple Aunt Chloe, who, in the confusion of her
grief, kissed an eyelash into my eye, and then
buried her face in the bright bandana turban
which she had mounted that morning in honor of
our departure.

I fancy them standing by the open garden gate ;
the tears are rolling down Aunt Chloe’s cheeks ;
Sam’s six front teeth are glistening like pearls; I
wave my hand to him manfully, then I call out
“ good-by” in a muffled voice to Aunt Chloe;
they and the old home fade away. Iam never to
see them again!



CHAPTER III
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON

I po not remember much about the voyage to
Boston, for after the first few hours at sea I was
dreadfully unwell.

The name of our ship was the “A No. 1, fast-
sailing packet Typhoon.” I learned afterwards
that she sailed fast only in the newspaper adver-
tisements. My father owned one quarter of the
Typhoon, and that is why we happened to go in
her. I tried to guess which quarter of the ship he
owned, and finally concluded it must be the hind
quarter— the cabin, in which we had the cosiest
of staterooms, with one round window in the roof,
and two shelves or boxes nailed up against the
wall to sleep in.

There was a good deal of confusion on deck
while we were getting under way. The captain
shouted orders (to which nobody seemed to pay
any attention) through a battered tin trumpet, and
grew so red in the face that he reminded me of a.
scooped-out pumpkin with a lighted candle inside.
He swore right and left at the sailors without the
slightest regard for their feelings. They didn’t
mind it a bit, however, but went on singing:



ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 13

“Heave ho!
With the rum below,
And hurrah for the Spanish Main O!”

I will not be positive about “the Spanish Main,”
but it was hurrah for something O. I considered
them very jolly fel-
lows, and so, indeed,
they were. One
weather-beaten tar in
particular struck my
fancy —a_ thick-set,
jovial man, about fifty
years of age, with
twinkling blue eyes
and a fringe of gray
hair circling his head
like a crown. As he
took off his tarpaulin
I observed that the
top of his head was
quite smooth and flat, as if somebody had sat down
on him when he was very young.

There was something noticeably hearty in this
man’s bronzed face, a heartiness that seemed to
extend to his loosely knotted neckerchief. But
what completely won my good will was a picture
of enviable loveliness painted on his left arm. It
was the head of a woman with the body of a fish.
Her flowing hair was of livid green, and she held
a pink comb in one hand. I never saw anything



The Captain



14 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

so beautiful. I determined to know that man. I
think I would have given my brass pistol to have
had such a picture painted on my arm.

While I stood admiring this work of art, a fat,
wheezy steam-tug, with the word AJAX in staring
black letters on the paddle-box, came puffing up
alongside the Typhoon. It was ridiculously small
and conceited, compared with our stately ship. I
speculated as to what it was going to do. Ina
few minutes we were lashed to the little monster,
which gave a snort and a shriek, and began back-
ing us out from the levee (wharf) with the greatest
ease,

I once saw an ant running away with a piece of
cheese eight or ten times larger than itself. I
could not help thinking of it, when I found the
chubby, smoky-nosed tug-boat towing the Typhoon
out into the Mississippi River.

In the middle of the stream we swung round,
the current caught us, and away we flew like a
great winged bird. Onlyit did not seem as if we
were moving. The shore, with the countless
steamboats, the tangled rigging of the ships, and
the long lines of warehouses, appeared to be glid-
ing away from us.

It was grand sport to stand on the quarter-deck
and watch all this. Before long there was nothing
to be seen on either side but stretches of low
swampy land, covered with stunted cypress-trees,
from which drooped delicate streamers of Spanish



ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 15

moss —a fine place for alligators and congo snakes.
Here and there we passed a yellow sand-bar, and
here and there a snag lifted its nose out of the
water like a shark.

“ This is your last chance to see the city, Tom,”
said my father, as we swept round a bend of the
river.

I turned and looked. New Orleans was just a
colorless mass of something in the distance, and
the dome of the St. Charles Hotel, upon which the
sun shimmered for a moment, was no bigger than
the top of old Aunt Chloe’s thimble.

What do I remember next? the gray sky and
the fretful blue waters of the Gulf. The steam-tug
had long since let slip her hawsers dnd gone pant-
ing away with a derisive scream, as much as to
say, “I’ve done my duty, now look out for your-
self, old Typhoon !”

The ship seemed quite proud of being left to
take care of itself, and, with its huge white sails
bulged out, strutted off like a vain turkey. I had
been standing by my father near the wheel-house
all this while, observing things with that nicety
of perception which belongs only to children ; but
now the dew began falling, and we went below to
have supper.

The fresh fruit and milk, and the slices of cold
chicken looked very nice; yet somehow I had no
appetite. There was a general smell of tar about
everything. Then the ship gave sudden lurches



16 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

that made it a matter of uncertainty whether one
was going to put his fork to his mouth or into
his eye. The tumblers and wineglasses, stuck in
a rack over the table, kept clinking and clinking ;
and the cabin lamp, suspended by four gilt chains
from the ceiling, swayed to and fro crazily. Now
the floor seemed to rise, and now it seemed to sink
under one’s feet like a feather-bed.

There were not more than a dozen passengers
on board, including ourselves; and all of these,
excepting a bald-headed old gentleman — a retired
sea-captain — disappeared into their staterooms at
an early hour of the evening,

After supper was cleared away, my father and
the elderly gentleman,
whose name was Cap-
tain Truck, played at
checkers ; and I amused
myself for a while by
watching the trouble
they had in keeping the
men in the proper
places. Just at the most
exciting point of the
game, the ship would
careeen, and down would go the white checkers
pell-mell among the black. Then my father
laughed, but Captain Truck would grow very an-
gry, and vow that he would have won the game in
a move or two more, if the confounded old chicken-



Playing Checkers



ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 17

coop—that’s what he called the ship — hadn’t
lurched.

“J—TJ think I will go to bed now, please,” I
said, laying my hand on my father’s knee, and feel-
ing exceedingly queer.

It was high time, for the Typhoon was plunging
about in the most alarming fashion. I was speed-
ily tucked away in the upper berth, where I felt a
trifle more easy at first. My clothes were placed
on a narrow Shelf at my feet, and it was a great
comfort to me to know that my pistol was so
handy, for I made no doubt we should fall in with
pirates before many hours. This is the last thing
I remember with any distinctness. At midnight,
as I was afterwards told, we were struck by a gale
which never left us until we came in sight of the
Massachusetts coast.

For days and days I had no sensible idea of
what was going on around me. That we were
being hurled somewhere upside-down, and that I
did not like it, was about all I knew. I have, in-
deed, a vague impression that my father used to
climb up to the berth and call me his “ Ancienc
Mariner,” bidding me cheer up. But the Ancient
Mariner was far from cheering up, if I recollect
rightly ; and I do not believe that venerable navi-
gator would have cared much if it had been an-
nounced to him, through a speaking-trumpet, that
‘a low, black, suspicious craft, with raking masts,
was rapidly bearing down upon us!”



18 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

In fact, one morning, I thought that such was
the case, for bang! went the big cannon I had
noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on
board, and which had suggested to me the idea of
pirates. Bang! went the gun again in a few sec-
onds. I made a feeble effort to get at my trousers
pocket. But the Typhoon was only saluting Cape
Cod — the first land sighted by vessels approach-
ing the coast from a southerly direction.

The vessel had ceased to roll, and my seasick-
ness passed away as rapidly as it came. I was all
right now, “ only a little shaky in my timbers and
a little blue about the gills,” as Captain Truck
remarked to my mother, who, like myself, had
been confined to the stateroom during the passage.

At Cape Cod the wind parted company with us
without saying as much as “ Excuse me;” so we
were nearly two days in making the run which in
favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven
hours. That ’s what the pilot said.

I was able to go about the ship now, and I lost
no time in cultivating the acquaintance of the
sailor with the green-haired lady on his arm. I
found him in the forecastle—a sort of cellar in
the front part of the vessel. He was an agreeable
sailor, as I had expected, and we became the best
of friends in five minutes.

He had been all over the world two or three
times, and knew no end of stories. According to
his own account, he must have been shipwrecked



ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 19

at least twice a year ever since his birth. He had
served under Decatur when that gallant officer
peppered the Algerines and made them promise not



In the Forecastle

to sell their prisoners of war into slavery; he had
worked a gun at the bombardment of Vera Cruz
in the Mexican War, and he had been on Alexan-
der Selkirk’s Island more than once. There were



20 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

very few things he had not done in a seafaring
way.

“T suppose, sir,” I remarked, “ that your name
isn’t Typhoon ?”

“ Why, Lord love ye, lad, my name’s Benjamin
Watson, of Nantucket. But I’m a true blue Ty-
phooner,” he added, which increased my respect
for him; I do not know why, and I did not know
then whether Typhoon was the name of a vegeta-
ble or a profession,

Not wishing to be outdone in frankness, I dis-
closed to him that #zy name was Tom Bailey, upon
which he said he was very glad to hear it.

When we got more intimate, I discovered that
Sailor Ben, as he wished me to call him, was a
perfect walking picture-book. He had two an-
chors, a star, and a frigate in full sail on his right
arm; a pair of lovely blue hands clasped on his
breast, and I have no doubt that other parts of his
body were illustrated in the same agreeable man-
ner. I imagine he was fond of drawings, and took
- this means of gratifying his artistic taste. It was
certainly very ingenious and convenient. A port-
folio might be displaced, or dropped overboard ;
but Sailor Ben had his pictures wherever he went,
just as that eminent person in the poem

“ With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes”
was accompanied by music on all occasions.

The two hands on his breast, he informed me,
were a tribute to the memory of a dead mess.



ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 21

mate from whom he had parted years ago —and
surely a more touching tribute was never engraved
onatombstone. This caused me to think of my
parting with old Aunt Chloe, and I told him I
should take it as a great favor indeed if he would
paint a pink hand and a black ‘hand on my chest..
He said the colors were pricked into the skin with
needles, and that the operation was somewhat
painful. I assured him, in an off-hand manner,
_ that I did n’t mind pain, and begged him to set to
work at once.

The simple-hearted fellow, who was probably
not a little vain of his skill, took me into the fore-
castle, and was on the point of complying with my
request, when my father happened to look down
the gangway — a circumstance that rather inter-
fered with the decorative art.

I did not have another opportunity of conferring
alone with Sailor Ben, for the next morning, bright
and early, we came in sight of the cupola of the
Boston State House.



CHAPTER IV
RIVERMOUTH

Ir was a beautiful May morning when the Ty-
phoon hauled up at Long Wharf. Whether the
Indians were not early risers, or whether they
were away just then on a war-path, I could not
determine ; but they did not appear in any great
force —in fact, did not appear at all.

In the remarkable geography which I never
hurt myself with studying at New Orleans was a
picture representing the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers at Plymouth. The Pilgrim Fathers, in
rather odd hats and coats, are seen approaching
the savages; the savages, in no coats or hats
to speak of, are evidently undecided whether to
shake hands with the Pilgrim Fathers or to make
one grand rush and scalp the entire party. Now
this scene had so stamped itself on my mind that,
in spite of all my father had said, I was prepared
for some such greeting from the aborigines.
Nevertheless, I was not sorry to have my expec-
tations unfulfilled. By the way, speaking of the
Pilgrim Fathers, I often used to wonder why there
was no mention made of the Pilgrim Mothers.

While our trunks were being hoisted from the



RIVERMOUTH 23

hold of the ship, I mounted on the roof of the
cabin, and took a critical view of Boston. As we
came up the harbor, I had noticed that the houses
were huddled together on an immense hill, at the
top of which was a large building, the State
House, towering proudly above the rest, like an
amiable mother-hen surrounded by her brood of
many-colored chickens. A closer inspection did
not impress me very favorably. The city was
not nearly so imposing as New Orleans, which
stretches out for miles and miles, in the shape of
a crescent, along the banks of the majestic river.

I soon grew tired of looking at the masses of
houses, rising above one another in irregular tiers,
and was glad my father did not propose to remain
long in Boston. As I leaned over the rail in this
mood, a measly-looking little boy with no shoes
said that if I would come down on the wharf he
would lick me for two cents — not an exorbitant
price. But I did not go down. I climbed into
the rigging, and stared at him. This, as I was
rejoiced to observe, so exasperated him that he
stood on his head on a pile of boards, in order to
pacify himself.

The first train for Rivermouth left at noon.
After a late breakfast on board the Typhoon, our
trunks were piled upon a baggage-wagon, and our-
selves stowed away in a coach, which must have
turned at least one hundred corners before it set
us down at the railway station.



24 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

In less time than it takes to tell it, we were
shooting across the country at a fearful rate — now
clattering over a bridge, now screaming through a
_ tunnel; here we cut a flourishing village in two,
like a knife, and here we dived into the shadow of
a pine forest. Sometimes we glided along the
edge of the ocean, and could see the sails of ships
twinkling like bits of silver against the horizon ;
sometimes we dashed across rocky pasture-lands
where stupid-eyed cattle were loafing. It was fun
to scare the lazy-looking cows that lay round in
groups under the newly budded trees near the
railroad track.

We did not pause at any of the little brown sta-
tions on the route (they looked just like overgrown
black-walnut clocks), though at every one of them
a man popped out as if he were worked by ma-
chinery, and waved a red flag, and appeared as
though he would like to have us stop. But we
were an express train, and made no stoppages, ex-
cepting once or twice to give the engine a drink.

It is strange how the memory clings to some
things. It is over twenty years since I took that
first ride to Rivermouth, and yet, oddly enough,
I remember as if it were yesterday that, as we
_ passed slowly through the village of Hampton, we
~ saw two boys fighting behind a red barn. There
was also a shaggy yellow dog, who looked as if
he had begun to unravel, barking himself all up
into a knot with excitement. We had only’a hur-



RIVERMOUTH 25

ried glimpse of the battle —long enough, however,
to see that the combatants were equally matched
and very much in earnest. I am ashamed to say
how many times since I have speculated as to
which boy got licked. Maybe both the small
rascals are dead now (not in consequence of the
set-to, let us hope), or maybe they are married,
and have pug-
nacious urchins
of their own;
yet to this day
I sometimes
find myself won-
dering how that
fight turned
out.
Wehadbeen = %
riding perhaps
two hours and
a half, when we
shot by a tall ”
factory with a
chimney resembling a church-steeple ; then ihe lo-
comotive gave a scream, the engineer.rang his bell,
and we plunged into the twilight of a long wooden
building, open at both ends. Here we stopped,
and the conductor, thrusting his head in at the car
door, cried out, “ Passengers for Rivermouth !”
At last we had reached our journey’s end. On
the platform my father shook hands with a



A Glimpse of the Battle



26 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

straight, brisk old gentleman, whose face was very
serene and rosy. He had on a white hat anda
long swallow-tailed coat, the collar of which came
clear up above his ears. He did not look unlike
a Pilgrim Father. This, of course, was grand-
father Nutter, at whose house I was born. My
mother kissed him a great many times; and I was
glad to see him myself, though I naturally did not
feel very intimate with a person whom I had not
seen since I was eighteen months old.

While we were getting into the double-seated
wagon which grandfather Nutter had provided,
I took the opportunity of asking after the health
of the pony. The pony had arrived all right ten
days before, and was in the stable at home, quite
anxious to see me.

As we drove through the quiet old town, I
thought Rivermouth the prettiest place in the
world; and I think so still, The streets are long
and wide, shaded by gigantic American elms,
whose drooping branches, interlacing here and
there, span the avenue with arches graceful
enough to be the handiwork of fairies. Many of
the houses have small flower-gardens in front, gay
in the season with china-asters, and are substan-
tially built, with massive chimney-stacks and pro-
‘truding eaves. A beautiful river goes rippling by
the town, and, after turning and twisting among
a lot of tiny islands, empties itself into the sea.

The harbor is so fine that the largest ships can



RIVERMOUTH 27

sail directly up to the wharves and drop anchor.
Only they do not. Years ago it was a famous sea-
port. Princely fortunes were made in the West
India trade; and in 1812, when we were at war
with Great Britain, any number of privateers were
fitted out at Rivermouth to prey upon the mer-
chant vessels of the enemy. Certain people grew
suddenly and mysteriously rich. A great many
of “the first families” of to-day do not care to
trace their pedigree back to the time when their
grandsires owned shares in the Matilda Jane,
twenty-four guns.

Few ships come to Rivermouth now. Com-
merce drifted into other ports. The phantom
fleet sailed off one day, and never came back
again. The crazy old warehouses are empty ; and
barnacles and eelgrass cling to the piles of the
crumbling wharves, where the sunshine lies lov-
ingly, bringing out the faint spicy odor that
haunts the place — the ghost of the old dead West
India trade.

During our ride from the station, I was struck,
of course, only by the general neatness of the
houses and the beauty of the elm-trees lining the
streets. I describe Rivermouth now as I came to
know it afterwards.

Rivermouth is a very ancient town. In my day
there existed a tradition among the boys that it
was here Christopher Columbus made his first
landing on this continent. I remember having



28 ‘THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the exact spot pointed out to me by Pepper
Whitcomb. One thing is certain, Captain John
Smith, who afterwards, according to the legend,
married Pocahontas — whereby he got Powhatan
for a father-in-law — explored the river in 1614,
and was much charmed by the beauty of River-
mouth, which at that time was covered with wild
strawberry-vines.

Rivermouth figures prominently in all the colo-
nial histories. Every other house in the place has
its tradition more or less grim and entertaining,
If ghosts could flourish anywhere, there are cer-
tain streets in Rivermouth that would be full of
them. I do not know of a town with so many old
houses. Let us linger, for a moment, in front of
the one which the Oldest Inhabitant is always
sure to point out to the curious stranger.

It is a square wooden edifice, with gambrel
roof and deep-set window-frames. Over the win-
dows and doors there used to be heavy carvings —
oak-leaves and acorns, and angels’ heads with
wings spreading from the ears, oddly jumbled
together ; but these ornaments and other outward
signs of grandeur have long since disappeared,
A peculiar interest attaches itself to this -house,
not because of its age, for it has not been stand-
ing quite a century ; nor on account of its archi-
tecture, which is not striking — but because of the
illustrious men who at various periods have occu-
pied its spacious chambers.



RIVERMOUTH . 29

In 1770 it was an aristocratic hotel. At the
left side of the entrance stood a high post, from
which swung the sign of the Earl of Halifax. The
landlord was a stanch
loyalist — that is to
say, he believed in the
king, and when the
overtaxed colonies de-
termined to throw off
the British yoke, the
adherents to the Crown
held private meetings
in one of the back
rooms of the tavern.
This irritated the reb-
els, as they were
called; and one night
they made an attack on
the Earl of Halifax, tore down the signboard, broke
in the window-sashes, and gave the landlord hardly
time to make himself invisible over a fence in the
rear. ;

For several months the shattered tavern re-
mained deserted. At last the exiled innkeeper, on
promising to do better, was allowed to return; a
new sign, bearing the name of William Pitt, the
friend of America, swung proudly from the door-
post, and the patriots were appeased. Here it
was that the mail-coach from Boston twice a week,
for many a year, set down its load of travelers and



The Vanishing Landlord



30 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

gossip. For some of the details in this sketch, I
am indebted to a recently published chronicle of
those times.

It is 1782. The French fleet is lying in the
harbor of Rivermouth, and eight of the principal
officers, in white uniforms trimmed with gold lace,
have taken up their quarters at the sign of the
William Pitt. Who is this young and handsome
officer now entering the door of the tavern? It is
no less a personage than the Marquis Lafayette,
who has come all the way from Providence to visit
the French gentlemen boarding there. What a
gallant-looking cavalier he is, with his quick eyes
and coal-black hair! Forty years later he visited
the spot again ; his locks were gray and his step
was feeble, but his heart held its young love for
Liberty.

Who is this finely dressed traveler alighting
from his coach-and-four, attended by servants in
livery? Do you know that sounding name, written
in big valorous letters on the Declaration of Inde-
pendence — written as if by the hand of a giant ?
Can you not see it now?— Joun Hancock. This
is he.

Three young men, with their vee, are stand-
ing on the door-step of the William Pitt, bowing
politely, and inquiring in the most courteous terms
in the world if they can be accommodated. It
is the time of the French Revolution, and these
are three sons of the Duke of Orleans — Louis



RIVERMOUTH 31

Philippe and his two brothers. Louis Philippe
never forgot his visit to Rivermouth. Years
afterwards, when he was seated on the throne of
France, he asked an American lady, who chanced
to be at his court, if the pleasant old mansion was
still standing.

But a greater and a better man than the king of
the French has honored this roof. Here, in 1789,
came George Washington, the President of the
United States, to pay his final complimentary visit
to the State dignitaries. The wainscoted cham-
ber where he slept, and the dining-hall where he
entertained his guests, have a certain dignity and
sanctity which even the present Irish tenants
cannot wholly destroy.

During the period of my reign at Rivermouth,
an ancient lady, Dame Jocelyn by name, lived in
one of the upper rooms of this notable building.
She was a dashing young belle at the time of
Washington’s first visit to the town, and must
have been exceedingly coquettish and pretty, judg-
ing from a certain portrait on ivory still in the
possession of the family. According to Dame
Jocelyn, George Washington flirted with her just
a little bit —in what a stately and highly finished
manner can be imagined.

There was a mirror with a deep filigreed frame
hanging over the mantel-piece in this room. The
glass was cracked and the quicksilver rubbed off
or discolored in many places. When it reflected



32 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

your face, you had the singular pleasure of not
recognizing yourself. It gave your features the
appearance of having been run through a mince-
meat machine. But what rendered the looking-
glass a thing of enchantment to me was a faded
green feather, tipped with scarlet, which drooped
from the top of the tarnished gilt mouldings.
This feather Washington took from the plume of
his three-cornered hat, and presented with his
own hand to the worshipful Mistress Jocelyn the
day he left Rivermouth forever. I wish I could
describe the mincing genteel air, and the ill-con-
cealed self-complacency, with which the dear old
lady related the incident.

Many a Saturday afternoon have I climbed up
the rickety staircase to that dingy room, which
always had a flavor of snuff about it, to sit ona
stiff-backed chair and listen for hours together to
Dame Jocelyn’s stories of the olden time. How
she would prattle! She was bedridden — poor
creature !—and had not been out of the chamber
for fourteen years. Meanwhile the world had shot
ahead of Dame Jocelyn. The changes that had
taken place under her very nose were unknown to
this faded, crooning old gentlewoman, whom the
eighteenth century had neglected to take away with
the rest of its odd traps. She had no patience
with new-fangled notions. The old ways and the
old times were good enough for her. She had
never seen a steam-engine, though she had heard



RIVERMOUTH 33

“the dratted thing” screech inthe distance. In “er
day, when gentlefolk traveled, they went in their
own coaches. She did not see how respectable
people could bring themselves down to “riding in
a car with rag-tag and bobtail and Lord-knows-
who.” Poor old aristocrat! the landlord charged
her no rent for the room, and the neighbors took
turns in supplying her with meals. Towards the
close of her life— she lived to be ninety-nine —
she grew very fretful
and capricious about
her food. If she did
not chance to fancy
what was sent her,
she had no hesitation
in sending it back to
the giver with “ Miss
Jocelyn’s respectful
compliments.”

But I have been
gossiping too long —
and yet not too long
if I have impressed
upon the reader an idea of what a rusty, delightful
old town it was to which I had come to spend the
next three or four years of my boyhood.

A drive of twenty minutes from the station
brought us to the door-step of Grandfather Nut-
ter’s house. What kind of house it was, and what
sort of people lived in it, shall be told in another
chapter.



a
“ Miss Focelyn’s respectful compliments”



CHAPTER V
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE NUTTER FAMILY

Tue Nutter House —all the more prominent
dwellings in Rivermouth are named after some-
body ; for instance, there is the Walford House,
the Venner House, the Trefethen House, etc.,
though it by no means follows that they are
inhabited by the people whose names they bear —
the Nutter House, to resume, has been in our
family nearly a hundred years, and is an honor to
the builder (an ancestor of ours, I believe), sup-
posing durability to be a merit. If our ancestor
was a carpenter, he knew his trade. I wish I
knew mine as well. Such timber and such work-
manship do not often come together in houses
built nowadays.

Imagine. a low-studded structure, with a wide
hall running through the middle. At your right
hand, as you enter, stands a tall black mahogany
clock, looking like an Egyptian mummy set up on
end. On each side of the hall are doors (whose
knobs, it must be confessed, do not turn very
easily), opening into large rooms wainscoted and
rich in wood-carvings about the mantel-pieces and
cornices. The walls are covered with pictured



THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 35

paper, representing landscapes and sea-views. In
the parlor, for example, this enlivening figure is
repeated all over the room: A group of English
peasants, wearing Italian hats, are dancing on a
lawn that abruptly resolves itself into a sea-beach,
upon which stands a flabby fisherman (nationality
unknown), quietly hauling in what appears to be
a small whale, and totally regardless of the dread-
ful naval combat going on just beyond the end of
his fishing-rod. On the other side of the ships is
the mainland again, with the same peasants dan-
cing. Our ancestors were very worthy people, but
their wall-papers were abominable.

There are neither grates nor stoves in these
quaint chambers, but splendid open chimney-
places, with room enough for the corpulent back-
log to turn over comfortably on the polished and-
irons, A wide staircase leads from the hall to the
second story, which is arranged much like the first.
Over this isthe garret. Ineed not tell a New Eng-
land boy what a museum of curiosities is the gar-
ret of a well-regulated New England house of fifty
or sixty years’ standing. Here meet together, as
if by some preconcerted arrangement, all the bro-
ken-down chairs of the household, all the spavined
tables, all the seedy hats, all the intoxicated-looking
boots, all the split walking-sticks that have retired
from business, “weary with the march of life.”
The pots, the pans, the trunks, the bottles — who
may hope to make an inventory of the number-



36 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

less odds and ends collected in this bewildering
lumber-room ? But what a place it is to sit of an
afternoon with the rain pattering on the roof! what
a place in which to read Gulliver’s Travels, or the
famous adventures of Rinaldo Rinaldini !

My grandfather's house stood a little back from
the main street, in the shadow of two handsome
elms, whose overgrown boughs would dash them-
selves against the gables whenever the wind blew
hard. In the rear was a pleasant garden, covering
perhaps a quarter of anacre, full of plum-trees and
gooseberry-bushes. These trees were old settlers,
and are all dead now, excepting one, which bears
a purple plum as big as an egg. This tree, as I
remark, is still standing, and a more beautiful tree
to tumble out of never grew anywhere. In the
northwestern corner of the garden were the stables
and carriage-house, opening upon a narrow lane.
You may imagine that I madean early visit to that
locality to inspect Gypsy. Indeed, I paid her a
visit every half-hour during the first day of my ar-
rival. At the twenty-fourth visit she trod on my
foot rather heavily, as a reminder, probably, that I
was wearing out my welcome. She was a knowing
little pony, that Gypsy, and I shall have much to
say of her in the’ course of these pages.

Gypsy’s quarters were all that could be wished,
but nothing among my new surroundings gave me
more satisfaction than the cosy sleeping apartment
that had been prepared for myself. It was the hall
room over the front door.



THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 37

I had never before had a chamber all to myself,
and this one, about twice the size of our state-room
on board the Typhoon, was a marvel of neatness
and comfort. Pretty chintz curtains hung at the
window, and a patch quilt of more colors than were
in Joseph’s coat covered the
little truckle-bed. The pat-
tern of the wall-paper left no- j)\j
thing to be desired in that line.
On a gray background were
small bunches of leaves, un-
like any that ever grew in this
world; and on every other
bunch perched a yellow-bird,
pitted with crimson spots, as if it had just recov-
ered from a severe attack of the small-pox. That
no such bird ever existed did not detract from my
admiration of each one. There were two hundred
and sixty-eight of these birds in all, not counting
those split in two where the paper was badly joined.
I counted them once when I was laid up with
a fine black eye, and falling asleep immediately
dreamed that the whole flock suddenly took wing
and flew out of the window. From that time I was
never able to regard them as merely inanimate
objects.

A wash-stand in the corner, a chest of carved
mahogany drawers, a looking-glass in a filigreed
frame, and a high-backed chair studded with
brass nails like a coffin, constituted the furniture.



“A fine black eye”



38 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Over the head of the bed were two oak shelves,
holding perhaps a dozen books — among which
were Theodore, or The Peruvians ; Robinson Cru-
soe ; an odd volume of Tristram Shandy ; Baxter’s
Saints’ Rest, anda fine English edition of the Ara-
bian Nights, with six hundred wood-cuts by Harvey.

Shall I ever forget the hour when I first over-
hauled these books? I do not allude especially
to Baxter’s Saints’ Rest, which is far from being
a lively work for the young, but to the Arabian
Nights, and particularly Robinson Crusoe. The
thrill that ran into my fingers’ ends then has not run
out yet. Many a time did I steal up to this nest
of a room, and, taking the dog’s-eared volume from
its shelf, glide off into an enchanted realm, where
there were no lessons to get and no boys to smash
my kite. In alidless trunk in the garret I subse-
quently unearthed another motley collection of nov-
els and romances, embracing the adventures of
Baron Trenck, Jack Sheppard, Don Quixote, Gil
Blas, and Charlotte Temple — all of which I fed
upon like a bookworm.

I never come across a copy of any of those works
without feeling a certain tenderness for the yellow-
haired little rascal who used to lean above the
magic pages hour after hour, religiously believing
every word he read, and no more doubting the
reality of Sindbad the Sailor, or the Knight of the
Sorrowful Countenance, than he did the existence
of his own grandfather.





A Rainy Afternoon in the Garret






THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 4!

Against the wall at the foot of the bed hung a
single-barrel shot-gun —placed there by Grand-
father Nutter, who knew what a boy loved, if ever
agrandfatherdid. As the trigger of the gun had
been accidentally twisted off, it was not, perhaps,
the most dangerous weapon that could be placed
in the hands of youth. In this maimed condition
its bump of destructiveness was much less than
that of my small brass pocket-pistol, which I at
once proceeded to suspend from one of the nails
supporting the fowling-piece, for my vagaries con-
cerning the red man had been entirely dispelled.

Having introduced the reader to the Nutter
House, a presentation to the Nutter family nat-
urally follows. The family consisted of my grand-
father ; his sister, Miss Abigail Nutter; and Kitty
Collins, the maid-of-all-work.

Grandfather Nutter was a hale, cheery old gentle-
man, as straight and as bald as anarrow. He had
been a sailor in early life; that is to say, at the age
of ten years he fled from the multiplication-table,
and ran away to sea. A single voyage satisfied
him. There never was but one of our family who
did not run away to sea, and this one died at his
birth. My grandfather had also been a soldier —
a captain of militiain 1812. If I owe the British
nation anything, I owe thanks to that particular
British soldier who put a musket-ball into the fleshy
part of Captain Nutter’s leg, causing that noble
warrior a slight permanent limp, but offsetting the



42 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

injury by furnishing him with material for a story
which the old gentleman was never weary of telling

and I never weary of listening to. The story, in

brief, was as follows.

At the breaking out of the war, an English fri-
gate lay for several days off the coast near River-
mouth. A strong fort defended the harbor, and a
regiment of minute-men, scattered at various points
alongshore, stood ready to repel the boats, should
the enemy try to effect alanding. Captain Nut-
ter had charge of a slight earthwork just outside
the mouth of the river. Late one thick night the
sound of oars was heard; the sentinel tried to fire
off his gun at half-cock, and could not, when Captain
Nutter sprung upon the parapet in the pitch dark-
ness, and shouted, “ Boat ahoy!”” A musket-shot
immediately embedded itself in the calf of his leg.
The Captain tumbled into the fort, and the boat,
which had probably come in search of water, pulled
back to. the frigate.

‘This was my grandfather’s only exploit during
the war. That his prompt and bold conduct was
instruinental in teaching the enemy the hopeless-
ness of attempting to conquer such a people was
among the firm beliefs of my boyhood.

At the time I came to Rivermouth my grand-
father had retired from active pursuits, and was
living at ease on his money, invested principally
in shipping. He had been a widower many years ;
a maiden sister, the aforesaid Miss Abigail, man-



THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 43

aging his household. Miss Abigail also managed”
her brother, and her brother’s servant, and the vis-
itor at her brother's gate — not in a tyrannical




oho oee

\ 4
RY
\ }




Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins

af

spirit, but from a philanthropic desire to be useful
to everybody. In person she was tall and angu-
lar; she had a gray complexion, gray eyes, gray
eyebrows, and generally wore a gray dress. Her
strongest weak point was a belief in the efficacy
of “hot-drops ” as a cure for all known diseases.
If there were ever two persons who seemed to

(



44 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

dislike each other, Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins
were those persons. If ever two persons really
loved each other, Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins
were those persons also. They were always either
skirmishing or having a cup of tea lovingly to-
gether,

Miss Abigail was very fond of me, and so was
Kitty ; and in the course of their disagreements
each let me into the private history of the other.

According to Kitty, it was not originally my
grandfather’s intention to have Miss Abigail at
the head of his domestic establishment. She had
swooped down on him (Kitty's own words), with a
band-box in one hand and a faded blue cotton
umbrella, still in existence, in the other. Clad in
this singular garb —I do not remember that Kitty
alluded to any additional peculiarity of dress —
Miss Abigail had made her appearance at the
door of the Nutter House on the morning of my
grandmother’s funeral. The small amount of bag-
gage which the lady brought with her would have
led the superficial observer to infer that Miss Abi-
gail’s visit was limited to a few days. I run ahead
of my story in saying she remained seventeen
years! How much longer she would have re-
mained can never be definitely known now, as she
died at the expiration of that period.

Whether or not my grandfather was quite
pleased by this unlooked-for addition to his family
is a problem. He was very kind always to Miss



THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY = 45

Abigail, and seldom opposed her; though I think
she must have tried his patience sometimes, es-
pecially when she interfered with Kitty.

Kitty Collins, or Mrs. Catherine, as she per-
ferred to be called, was descended in a direct line
from an extensive family of kings who formerly
ruled over Ireland. In consequence of various
calamities, among which the failure of the potato-
crop may be mentioned, Miss Kitty Collins, in
company with several hundred of her countrymen
and countrywomen—also descended from kings
—came over to America in an emigrant ship, in
the year eighteen hundred and something

I do not know what freak of fortune caused the
royal exile to turn up at Rivermouth; but turn
up she did, a few months after arriving in this
country, and was hired by my grandmother to do
“general housework” for the modest sum of four
shillings and sixpence a week.

Kitty had been living about seven years in my
grandfather's family when she unburdened her
heart of a secret which had been weighing upon
it all that time. It may be said of people, as it is
said of nations, ‘‘ Happy are they that have no his-
tory.” Kitty hada history, and a pathetic one, I
think,

On board the emigrant ship that brought her
to America, she became acquainted with a sailor,
who, being touched by Kitty’s forlorn condition,
was very good to her. Long before the end of the



40 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

voyage, which had been tedious and perilous, she
was heart-broken at the thought of separating
from her kindly protector; but they were not to
part just yet, for the sailor returned Kitty's affec-
tion, and the two were married on their arrival at
port. Kitty’s husband — she would never men-
tion his name, but kept it locked in her bosom
like some precious relic — had a considerable sum
of money when the crew were paid off; and the
young couple — for Kitty was young then — lived
very happily in a lodging-house on South Street,
near the docks. This was in New York.

The days flew by like hours, and the stocking
in which the little bride kept the funds shrunk
and shrunk, until at last there were only three or
four dollars left in the toe of it. Then Kitty was
troubled ; for she knew her sailor would have to
go to sea again unless he could get employment
on shore. This he endeavored to do, but not with
much success. One morning as usual he kissed
her good day, and set out in search of work.

“Kissed me good-by, and called me his little
Irish lass,” sobbed Kitty, telling the story —
“kissed me good-by, and, Heaven help me! I
niver set oi on him nor on the likes of him again.”

He never came back. Day after day dragged
on, night after night, and then the weary weeks.
What had become of him? Had he been mur-
dered? had he fallen into the docks? had he—
deserted her? No! she could not believe that; he



THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 47

was too brave and tender and true. Shecould not
believe that. He was dead, dead, or he would
come back to her.

Meanwhile the landlord of the lodging-house
turned Kitty into the streets, now that “ her
man” was gone, and the payment of the rent
doubtful. She got a place as a servant. The fam-
ily she lived with shortly moved to Boston, and she
accompanied them; then they went abroad, but
Kitty would not leave America. Somehow she
drifted to Rivermouth, and for seven long years
never gave speech to her sorrow, until the kind-
ness of strangers, who had become friends to her,
unsealed the heroic lips.

Kitty’s story, you may be sure, made my grand-
parents treat her more kindly than ever. In time
she grew to be regarded less as a servant than as
a friend in the home circle, sharing its joys and
sorrows — a faithful nurse, a willing slave, a happy
spirit in spite of all. I fancy I hear her singing
over her work in the kitchen, pausing from time
to time to make some witty reply to Miss Abigail
— for Kitty, like all her race, had a vein of uncon-
scious humor. Her bright honest face comes to
me out from the past, the light and life of the
Nutter House when I was a boy at Rivermouth.



CHAPTER VI
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

THE first shadow that fell upon me in my new
home was caused by the return of my parents to
New Orleans. Their visit was cut short by busi-
ness which required my father’s presence in
Natchez, where he was establishing a branch of
the banking-house. When they had gone, a sense
of loneliness such as I had never dreamed of filled
my young breast. I crept away to the stable, and,
throwing my arms about Gypsy’s neck, sobbed
aloud. She too had come from the sunny South,
and was now a stranger in a strange land.

The little mare seemed to realize our situation,
and gave me all the sympathy I could ask, re-
peatedly rubbing her soft nose over my face and
lapping up my salt tears with evident relish.

When night came, I felt still more lonesome.
My grandfather sat in his armchair the greater
part of the evening, reading the Rivermouth
Barnacle, the local newspaper. There was no gas
in those days, and the Captain read by the aid of
a small block-tin lamp, which he held in one hand.
I observed that he had a habit of dropping off
into a doze every three or four minutes, and I for-





Waiting for the Conflagration






LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 51

got my homesickness at intervals in watching
him. Two or three times, to my vast amusement,
he scorched the edges of the newspaper with the
wick of the lamp; and at about half past eight
o’clock I had the satisfaction —I am sorry to con-
fess it was a satisfaction—of seeing the River-
mouth Barnacle in flames.

My grandfather leisurely extinguished the fire
with his hands, and Miss Abigail, who sat near
a low table, knitting by the light of an astral lamp,
did not even look up. She was quite used to this
catastrophe.

There was little or no conversation during the
evening. In fact, I do not remember that any
one spoke at all, excepting once, when the Captain
remarked, in a meditative manner, that my parents
“must have reached New York by this time ;” at
which supposition I nearly strangled myself in at-
tempting to intercept a sob.

The monotonous “click click” of Miss Abi-
gail’s needles made me nervous after a while, and
finally drove me out of the sitting-room into the
kitchen, where Kitty caused me to laugh by say-
ing Miss Abigail thought that what I needed was
“a good dose of hot-drops’’—a remedy she was
forever ready to administer in all emergencies.
If a boy broke his leg, or lost his mother, I believe
Miss Abigail would have given him hot-drops.

Kitty laid herself out to be entertaining. She
told me several funny Jrish stories, and described



52 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

some of the odd people living in the town; but,
in the midst of her comicalities, the tears would
involuntarily ooze out of my eyes, though I was
not a lad much addicted to weeping. Then Kitty
would put her arms around me, and tell me not to
mind it — that it was not asif I had been left alone
in a foreign land with no one to care for me, like
a poor girl whom she had once known. I bright-
ened up before long, and told Kitty all about the
Typhoon and the old seaman, whose name I tried
in vain to recall, and was obliged to fall back on
plain Sailor Ben.

I was glad when ten o’clock came, the bedtime
for young folks, and old folks too, at the Nutter
House. Alone in the hall-chamber I had my cry
out, once for all, moistening the pillow to such an
extent that I was obliged to turn it over to find
a dry spot to go to sleep on.

My grandfather wisely concluded to put me to
school at once. If I had been permitted to go
mooning about the house and stables, I should
have kept my discontent alive for months. The
next morning, accordingly, he took me by the
hand, and we set forth for the academy, which
was located at the farther end of the town.

The Temple School was a two-story brick
building, standing in the centre of a great square
piece of land, surrounded by a high picket fence.
There were three or four sickly trees, but no grass,
in this inclosure, which had been worn smooth and



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 53

hard by the tread of multitudinous feet. I noticed
here and there small holes scooped in the ground,
indicating that it was the season for marbles. A
better playground for base-ball could not have been
devised.

On reaching the schoolhouse door, the Captain
inquired for Mr. Grim-
shaw. The boy who an-
swered our knock ush-
ered us into a side room,
and in a few minutes —
during which my eye took
in forty-two caps hung on
forty-two wooden pegs—
Mr. Grimshaw made his
appearance. He was a
slender man, with white,
fragile hands, and eyes
that glanced half a dozen different ways at once
—a habit probably acquired from watching the
boys.

After a brief consultation, my grandfather pat-
ted me on the head and left me in charge of this
gentleman, who seated himself in front of me and
proceeded to sound the depth, or more properly
speaking, the shallowness, of my attainments. I
suspect that my historical information rather star-
tled him. I recollect I gave him to understand
that Richard III. was the last king of England.

This ordeal over, Mr. Grimshaw rose and bade



Mr. Grimshaw



54 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

me follow him. A door opened, and I stood in
the blaze of forty-two pairs of upturned eyes. I
was a cool hand for my age, but I lacked the
boldness to face this battery without wincing. In
a sort of dazed way I stumbled after Mr. Grimshaw
down a narrow aisle between two rows of desks,
and shyly took the seat pointed out to me.

The faint buzz that had floated over the school-
room at our entrance died away, and the inter-
rupted lessons were resumed. By degrees I re-
covered my coolness, and ventured to look around
me.

The owners of the forty-two caps were seated at
small green desks like the one assigned to me.
The desks were arranged in six rows, with spaces
between just wide enough to prevent the boys’
whispering. A blackboard set into the wall ex-
tended clear across the end of the room; on a
raised platform near the door stood the master’s
table; and directly in front of this was a recita-
tion bench capable of seating fifteen or twenty
pupils. A pair of globes, tattooed with dragons
and winged horses, occupied a shelf between two
windows, which was so high from the floor that
nothing but a giraffe could have looked out of them.

Having possessed myself of these details, I
scrutinized my new acquaintances with uncon-
cealed curiosity, instinctively selecting my friends
and picking out my enemies—and in only two
cases did I mistake my man,



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 55

A sallow boy with bright red hair, sitting in the
fourth row, shook his fist at me furtively several
times during the morning. I hada presentiment
I should have trouble with that boy some day —
a presentiment subsequently realized.

On my left was a chubby little fellow with a
great many freckles (this was Pepper Whitcomb),
who made some mysterious motions to me. I did
not understand them, but, as they were clearly of
a pacific nature, I winked my eye at him. This
appeared to be satisfactory, for he then went on
with his studies. At recess he gave me the core
of his apple, though there were several applicants
for it.

Presently a boy in a loose olive-green jacket
with two rows of brass buttons, held up a folded
paper behind his slate, intimating that it was in-
tended for me. The paper was passed skillfully
from desk to desk until it reached my hands. On
opening the scrap, I found that it contained
a small piece of molasses candy in an extremely
humid state. This was certainly kind. I nodded
my acknowledgments and hastily slipped the
delicacy into my mouth. In a second I felt my
tongue grow red-hot with cayenne pepper.

My face must have assumed a comical expres-
sion, for the boy in the olive-green jacket gave an
hysterical laugh, for which he was instantly pun-
ished by Mr. Grimshaw. I swallowed the fiery
candy, though it brought the water to my eyes,



56 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

and managed to look so unconcerned that I was
the only pupil in the form who escaped question-
ing as to the cause of Marden’s misdemeanor.
Marden was his name.

Nothing else occurred that
morning to interrupt the ex-
ercises, excepting that a boy
in the reading class threw us
all into convulsions by call-
ing Absalom “ Abol’som, O my son Abol’-
som!” I laughed as loud as
any one, but I am not so sure
that I should not have pronounced it Abol'som
myself.

At recess several of the scholars came to my
desk and shook hands with me, Mr. Grimshaw
having previously introduced me to Phil Adams,
charging him to see that I got into no trouble.
My new acquaintances suggested that we should
go to the playground. We were no sooner out of
doors than the boy with the red hair thrust his way
through the crowd and placed himself at my side.

“T say, youngster, if you’re comin’ to this
school you’ve got to toe the mark.”

I did not see any mark to toe, and did not un-
derstand what he meant; but I replied politely,
that, if it was the custom of the school, I should
be happy to toe the mark, if he would point it out
to me.



Swallowing the Candy



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 57

“T don’t want any of your sarse,”’ said the boy,
scowling.

“Look here, Conway!” cried a clear voice
from the other side of the playground, “you let
young Bailey alone. He’s a stranger here, and
might be afraid of you, and thrash you. Why do
you always throw yourself in the way of getting
thrashed ?”

I turned to the speaker, who by this time had
reached the spot where we stood. Conway slunk
off, favoring me with a parting scowl of defiance.
I gave my hand to the boy who had befriended
me — his name was Jack Harris— and thanked
him for his good-will.

“T tell you what it is, Bailey,” he said, return-
ing my pressure good-naturedly, “you'll have to
fight Conway before the quarter ends, or you'll
have no rest. That fellow is always hankering
after a licking, and of course you’ll give him one
by and by; but what’s the use of hurrying up an
unpleasant job? lLet’s have some base-ball. By
the way, Bailey, you were a good kid not to let on
to Grimshaw about the candy. Charley Marden
would have caught it twice as heavy. He’s sorry
he played the joke on you, and told me to tell you
so. Hallo, Blake! where are the bats?”

This was addressed to a handsome, frank-looking
lad of about my own age, who was engaged just
then in’ cutting his initials on the bark of a tree
near the schoolhouse. Blake shut up his penknife
and went off to get the bats.



58 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

During the game which ensued I made the ac-
quaintance of Charley Marden, and Binny Wallace,
Pepper Whitcomb, Harry Blake, and Fred Lang-
don. These boys, none of them more than a year
or two older than I (Binny Wallace was younger),
were ever after my chosen comrades. Phil Adams
and Jack Harris were considerably our seniors, and
though they always treated us “kids” very kindly,
they generally went with another set. Of course,
before long I knew all the Temple boys more or
less intimately, but the five I have named were my
constant companions.

My first day at the Temple Grammar School was
on the whole satisfactory. I had made several
warm friends, and only two permanent enemies —
Conway and his echo, Seth Rodgers ; for these two
always went together like a deranged stomach and
a headache.

Before the end of the week I had my studies
well in hand. I was a little ashamed at finding
myself at the foot of the various classes, and
secretly determined to deserve promotion. The
school was an admirable one. I might make this
part of my story more entertaining by picturing
Mr. Grimshaw as a tyrant with a red nose and a
large stick ; but unfortunately for the purposes of
sensational narrative, Mr. Grimshaw was a quiet,
kind-hearted gentleman. Though a rigid disciplin-
arian, he had a keen sense of justice, was a good
reader of character, and the boys respected him.



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 59

There were two other teachers — a French tutor
and a writing-master, who visited the school twice
a week. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were
dismissed at noon, and these half-holidays were
the brightest epochs of my existence.

Daily contact with boys who had not been
brought up as gently as I worked an immediate,
and, in some respects, a beneficial change in my
character. I had the nonsense taken out of me, as
the saying is — some of the nonsense, at least.
I became more manly and self-reliant. I discovered
that the world was not created exclusively on my
account. In New Orleans I labored under the de-
lusion that it was. Having neither brother nor
sister to give up to at home, and being, moreover,
the largest pupil at school there, my will had sel-
dom been opposed. At Rivermouth matters were
different, and I was not long in adapting myself to
the altered circumstances. Of course I got many
severe rubs, often unconsciously given; but I had
the sense to see that I was all the better for them.

My social relations with my new schoolfellows
were the pleasantest possible. There was always
some exciting excursion on foot — a ramble through
the pine woods, a visit to the Devil’s Pulpit, a high
cliff in the neighborhood — or a surreptitious row —
on the river, involving an exploration of a group of
diminutive islands, upon ‘one of which we pitched
a tent and played we were the Spanish sailors who



60 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

got wrecked there years ago. But the endless
pine forest that skirted the town was our favorite
haunt. There was a great green pond hidden some-
where in its depths, inhabited by a monstrous col-
ony of turtles. Harry Blake, who had an eccentric
passion for carving his name on everything, never
let a captured turtle slip through his fingers with-
out leaving his mark engraved on its shell. He
must have lettered about two thousand from first to
last. We used to call them Harry Blake’s sheep.

These turtles were of a discontented and migra-
tory turn of mind, and we frequently encountered
two or three of them on the cross-roads several
miles from their ancestral mud. Unspeakable was
our delight whenever we discovered one soberly
walking off with Harry Blake’s initials! I have no
doubt there are, at this moment, fat ancient tur-
tles wandering about that gummy woodland with
H. B. neatly cut on their venerable backs.

It soon became a custom among my playmates
to make our barn their rendezvous. Gypsy proved
a strong attraction. Captain Nutter bought me
a little two-wheeled cart, which she drew quite
nicely, after kicking out the dasher and breaking
the shafts once or twice. With our lunch-baskets
and fishing-tackle stowed away under the seat, we
used to start off early in the afternoon for the sea-
shore, where there were countless marvels in the
shape of shells, mosses, and kelp. Gypsy enjoyed
the sport as keenly as any of us, even going so far,



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 61

one day, as to trot down the beach into the sea
where we were bathing. As she took the cart with
her, our provisions were not much improved. I
shall never forget how squash-pie tastes after being
soused in the Atlantic Ocean. Soda-crackers dipped
in salt water are palatable, but not squash-pie.

There was a good deal of wet weather during
those first six weeks at Rivermouth, and we set
ourselves at work to find some in-door amusement
for our half-holidays. It was all very well for
Amadis de Gaul and Don Quixote not to mind the
rain; they had iron overcoats, and were not, from
all we can learn, subject to croup and the guidance
of their grandfathers. Our case was different.

“Now, boys, what shall we do?” I asked, ad-
dressing a thoughtful conclave of seven, assembled
in our barn one dismal rainy afternoon.

‘“Let’s have a theatre,” suggested Binny Wal-
lace.

The very thing! But where? The loft of the
stable was ready to burst with hay provided for
Gypsy, but the long room over the carriage-house
was unoccupied. The place of all places! My
managerial eye saw at a glance its capabilities for
a theatre. I had been to the play a great many
times in New Orleans, and was wise in matters
pertaining to the drama. So here, in due time,
was set up some extraordinary scenery of my
own painting. The curtain, I recollect, though it
worked smoothly enough on other occasions, inva-



62 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

riably hitched during the performances ; and it
often required the united energies of the Prince of
Denmark, the King, and the Grave-digger, with
an occasional hand from “the fair Ophelia” (Pep-
per Whitcomb in a low-necked dress), to hoist
that bit of green cambric.

The theatre, however, was a success, so far as it
went. I retired from the business with no fewer
than fifteen hundred pins, after deducting the head-
less, the pointless, and the crooked pins with which
our doorkeeper frequently got “stuck.” From first
to last we took in a great deal of this counterfeit
money. The price of admission to the “ River-
mouth Theatre” was twenty pins. I played all
the principal parts myself —not that I was a finer
actor than the other boys, but because I owned the
establishment.

At the tenth representation, my dramatic career
was brought to a close by an unfortunate circum-
stance. We were playing the drama of “ William
Tell the Hero of Switzerland.” Of course I was
William Tell, in spite of Fred Langdon, who wanted
to act that character himself. I would not let him,
so he withdrew from the company, taking the only
bow and arrow we had. I made a cross-bow out
of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without
him. We had reached that exciting scene where
Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to
shoot the apple from his son’s head. Pepper
Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 63

parts, was my son. To guard against mischance,
a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handker-
chief over the upper portion of Whitcomb’s face,
while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a
strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and









i | hil

can SCAU TY















The Drama of William Tell

the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its
russet cheek fairly towards me.

Ican see poor little Pepper now, as he stood with-
out flinching, waiting for me to perform my great
feat. I raised the cross-bow amid. the breathless
silence of the crowded audience — consisting of
seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Col-
lins, who insisted on paying her way in with a
clothes-pin. I raised the cross- bow, I repeat.



64 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Twang! went the whipcord ; but, alas! instead of
hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper
Whitcomb’s mouth, which happened to be open at
the time, and destroyed my aim.

I shall never be able to banish that awful mo-
ment from my memory. Pepper’s roar, expres-
sive of astonishment, indignation, and pain, is still
ringing in myears. I looked upon him as a corpse,
and, glancing not far into the dreary future, pic-
tured myself led forth to execution in the presence
of the very same spectators then assembled.

Luckily poor Pepper was not seriously hurt ; but
Grandfather Nutter, appearing in the midst of the
confusion (attracted by the howls of young Tell),
issued an injunction against all theatricals there-
after,and the place was closed; not, however, with-
out a farewell speech from me, in which I said that
this would have been the proudest moment of my
life if I had not hit Pepper Whitcomb in the mouth.
Whereupon the audience (assisted, I am glad to
state, by Pepper) cried “Hear! hear!” I then at-
tributed the accident to Pepper himself, whose
mouth, being open at the instant I fired, acted
upon the arrow much after the fashion of a whirl-
pool, and drew in the fatal shaft. J was about to
explain how acomparatively small maelstrom could
suck in the largest ship, when the curtain fell of
its own accord, amid the shouts of the audience.

This was my last appearance on any stage. It
was some time, though, before I heard the end of



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 65

the William Tell business. Malicious little boys
who had not been allowed to buy tickets to my
theatre used to cry out after me in the street :
“© Who killed Cock Robin ?’
‘J,’ said the sparrer,

‘With my bow and arrer,
I killed Cock Robin!’ ”

The sarcasm of this verse was more than I could
stand. And it made Pepper Whitcomb pretty mad
to be called Cock Robin, I can tell you !

So the days glided on, with fewer clouds and
more sunshine than fall to the lot of most boys.
Conway was certainly a cloud. Within school-
bounds he seldom ventured to be aggressive ; but
whenever we met about town he never failed to
brush against me, or pull my cap over my eyes,
or drive me distracted by inquiring after my fam-
ily in New Orleans, always alluding to them as
highly respectable colored people.

Jack Harris was right when he said Conway
would give me no rest until I fought him. I felt
it was ordained ages before our birth that we
should meet on this planet and fight. With the
view of not running counter to destiny, I quietly
prepared myself for the impending conflict. The
scene of my dramatic triumphs was turned into a
gymnasium for this purpose, though I did not
openly avow the fact to the boys. By persistently
standing on my head, raising heavy weights, and
going hand over hand up a ladder, I developed my



66 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

muscle until my little body was as tough as a hick-
ory knot and as supple as tripe. I also took occa-
sional lessons in the noble art of self-defense,
under the tuition of Phil Adams.

I brooded over the matter until the idea of
fighting Conway became a part of me. I fought
him in imagination during school-hours ; I dreamed
of fighting with him at night, when he would sud-
denly expand into a giant twelve feet high, and
then as suddenly shrink into a pygmy so small -
that I could not hit him. Jn this latter shape he
would get into my hair, or pop into my waistcoat-
pocket, treating me with as little ceremony as the
Lilliputians showed Captain Lemuel Gulliver — all
of which was not pleasant, to be sure. On the
whole, Conway was a cloud.

And then I had a cloud at home. It was not
Grandfather Nutter, nor Miss Abigail, nor Kitty
Collins, though they all helped to compose it. It
was a vague, funereal, impalpable something which
no amount of gymnastic training would enable me
to knock over. It was Sunday. If ever I havea
boy to bring up in the way he should go, I intend
to make Sunday a cheerful day to him. Sunday
was zot a cheerful day at the Nutter House. You
shall judge for yourself.

It is Sunday morning. I should premise by say-
ing that the deep gloom which has settled over
everything set in like a heavy fog early on Satur-
day evening.



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 67

At seven o’clock my grandfather comes smile-
lessly down stairs. He is dressed in black, and
looks as if he had lost all his friends during the
night. Miss Abigail, also in black, looks as if she
were prepared to bury them, and not indiposed to

enjoy the ceremony. Even Kitty Collins has _

caught the contagious gloom, as I perceive when
she brings in the coffee-urn — a solemn and sculp-
turesque urn at any time, but monumental now —
and sets it down in front of Miss Abigail. Miss
Abigail gazes at the urn as if it held the ashes of
her ancestors, instead of a generous quantity of fine
old Java coffee. The meal progresses in silence.
Our parlor is by no means thrown open every
day. It is open this
June morning, and is
pervaded by a strong
smell of centre-table.
The furniture of the
room, and” the little
China ornaments on
the mantel-piece, have
a constrained, unfamil-
liar look. My grand-
father sits in a ma-
hogany chair, reading
a large Bible covered
with green baize. Miss Crushed
Abigail occupies one end of the sofa, and has her
hands crossed stiffly inherlap. I sit in the corner,



i
B



68 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

crushed. Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas are in
close confinement. Baron Trenck, who managed
to escape from the fortress of Glatz, can’t for the
life of him get out of our sitting-room closet. Even
the Rivermouth Barnacle is suppressed until Mon-
day. Genial converse, harmless books, smiles,
lightsome hearts, all are banished. If I want to
read anything, I can read Baxter’s Saints’ Rest.
I would die first. So I sit there kicking my heels,
thinking about New Orleans, and watching a mor-
bid blue-bottle fly that attempts to commit suicide
by butting his head against the window-pane.
Listen !— no, yes —it is —it is the robins singing
in the garden — the grateful, joyous robins sing-
ing away like mad, just as if it were not Sunday.
Their audacity tickles me.

My grandfather looks up, and inquires in a
-sepulchral voice if I am ready for Sabbath-school.
It is time to go. I like the Sabbath-school; there
are bright young faces ¢here, at all events. When
I get out into the sunshine alone, I draw a long
breath; I would turn a somersault up against
Neighbor Penhallow’s newly painted fence if I had
not my best trousers on, so glad am I to escape
from the oppressive atmosphere of the Nutter
House.

Sabbath-school over, I go to meeting, joining
my grandfather, who does not appear to be any
relation to me this day, and Miss Abigail, in the
porch. Our minister holds out very little hope to



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 69

any of us of being saved. Convinced that I am a
lost creature, in common with the human family,
I return home behind my guardians at a snail’s
pace. We have a dead-cold dinner. I saw it laid
out yesterday.

There is a long interval between this repast and
the second service, and a still longer interval be-
tween the beginning and the end of that service ;.
for the Rev. Wibird Hawkins’s sermons are none
of the shortest, whatever else they may be.

After meeting, my grandfather and I take a
walk. We visit, appropriately enough, a neighbor-
ing graveyard. I am by this time in a condition
of mind to become a willing inmate of the place.
The usual evening prayer-meeting is postponed for
some reason. At half past eight I go to bed.

This is the way Sunday was observed in the
Nutter House, and pretty generally throughout
the town, twenty years ago. People who were
prosperous and natural and happy on Saturday
became the most rueful of human beings in the
brief space of twelve hours. I do not think there
was any hypocrisy in this. It was merely the old
Puritan austerity cropping out once aweek. Many
of these people were pure Christians every day in
the seven—excepting the seventh. Then they
were decorous and solemn to the verge of morose-
ness. I should not like to be misunderstood on
this point. Sunday is a blessed day, and there-
fore it should not be made a gloomy one. It is



70 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the Lord’s day, and I do believe that cheerful
hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.

“O day of rest? How beautiful, how fair,
How welcome to the weary and the old!
Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly cares!
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be!
Ah, why will man by his austerities
Shut out the blessed sunshine and the light,
And make of thee a dungeon of despair!”



CHAPTER VII
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT

Two months had elapsed since my arrival at
Rivermouth, when the approach of an important
celebration produced the greatest excitement
among the juvenile population of the town.

There was very little hard study done in the
Temple Grammar School the week preceding the
Fourth of July. For my part, my heart and brain
were so full of fire-crackers, Roman-candles, rock-
ets, pin-wheels, squibs, and gunpowder in various
seductive forms, that I wonder I did not explode
under Mr. Grimshaw’s very nose. I could not do
a sum to save me; I could not tell, for love or
money, whether Tallahassee was the capital of
Tennessee or of Florida; the present and the plu-
perfect tenses were inextricably mixed in my
memory, and I did not know a verb from an ad-
jective when I met one. This was not alone my
condition, but that of every boy in the school.

Mr. Grimshaw considerately made allowances
for our temporary distraction, and sought to fix
our interest on the lessons by connecting them di-
rectly or indirectly with the coming Event. The
class in arithmetic, for instance, was requested to



72 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

state how many boxes of fire-crackers, each box
measuring sixteen inches square, could be stored
in a room of such and such dimensions. He gave
us the Declaration of Independence for a parsing
exercise, and in geography confined his questions
almost exclusively to localities rendered famous in
the Revolutionary War. “What did the people
of Boston do with the tea on board the English
vessels ?” asked our wily instructor. |

“ Threw it into the river!” shrieked the smaller
boys, with an impetuosity that made Mr. Grim-
shaw smile in spite of himself. One luckless ur-
chin said, “ Chucked it,” for which happy expres-
sion he was kept in at recess.

Notwithstanding these clever stratagems, there
was not much solid work done by anybody. The
trail of the serpent (an inexpensive but dangerous
fire-toy) was over us all. We went round deformed
by quantities of Chinese crackers artlessly con-
cealed in our trousers-pockets ; and if a boy whipped
out his handkerchief without proper precaution,
he was sure to let off two or three torpedoes.

Even Mr. Grimshaw was made a sort of acces-
sory to the universal demoralization. In calling
the school to order, he always rapped on the table
_ with a heavy ruler. Under the green baize table-
cloth, on the exact spot where he usually struck, a
certain boy, whose name I withhold, placed a fat
torpedo. The result was a loud explosion, which
caused Mr. Grimshaw to look queer. Charley



ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 73

Marden was at the water-pail, at the time, and
directed general attention to himself by strangling
for several seconds and then squirting a slender
thread of water over the blackboard.

Mr. Grimshaw fixed his eyes reproachfully on
Charley, but said no-
thing. The real cul-
prit (it was not Charley
Marden, but the boy
whose name I with-
hold) instantly regret-
ted his badness, and
after school confessed
the whole thing to Mr.
Grimshaw, who heaped
coals of fire upon the
nameless boy’s head by
giving him five cents for
the Fourth of July. If
Mr. Grimshaw had caned this unknown youth, the
punishment would not have been half so severe.

On the last day of June the Captain received a
letter from my father, inclosing five. dollars “for
my son Tom,” which enabled that young gentle-
man to make regal preparations for the celebration
of our national independence. A portion-of this
money, two dollars, I hastened to invest in fire-
works; the balance I put by for contingencies.
In placing the fund in my possession, the Captain
imposed one condition that dampened my ardor



Mr. Grimshaw looked Quecr



74 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

considerably —I was to buy no gunpowder. I
might have all the snapping-crackers and -torpe-
does I wanted; but gunpowder was out of the
question,

I thought this rather hard, for all my young
friends were provided with pistols of various sizes.
Pepper Whitcomb had a horse-pistol nearly as
large as himself, and Jack Harris, though he, to
be sure, was a big boy, was going to have a real
old-fashioned flint-lock musket. However, I did
not mean to let this drawback destroy my happi-
ness. I had one charge of powder stowed away
in the little brass pistol which I brought from
New Orleans, and was bound to make a noise in
the world once, if I never did again.

It was a custom observed from time immemo-
rial for the towns-boys to have a bonfire on the
Square on the midnight before the Fourth. I did
not ask the Captain’s leave to attend this cere-
mony, for I had a general idea that he would not
give it. If the Captain, I reasoned, does not forbid
me, I break no orders by going. Now this was a
specious line of argument, and the mishaps that
befell me in consequence of adopting it were richly
deserved.

On the evening of the third I retired to bed very
early, in order to disarm suspicion. I did not
sleep a wink, waiting for eleven o’clock to come
round ; and I thought it never would come round,
as I lay counting from time to time the slow



ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 75

strokes of the ponderous bell in the steeple of the
Old North Church. At length the laggard hour
arrived. While the clock was striking I jumped
out of bed and began dressing.

My grandfather and Miss Abigail were heavy
sleepers, and I might have stolen downstairs and
out at the front door undetected ; but such a com-
monplace proceeding did not suit my adventurous
disposition. I fastened one end of a rope (it was
a few yards cut from Kitty Collins’s clothes-line)
to the bedpost nearest the window, and cautiously
climbed out on the wide pediment over the hall
door. I had neglected to knot the rope; the re-
sult was, that, the moment I swung clear of the
pediment, I descended like a flash of lightning,
and warmed both my hands smartly. The rope,
moreover, was four or five feet too short; so I got
a fall that would have proved serious had I not
tumbled into the middle of one of the big rose-
bushes growing on either side of the steps.

I scrambled out of that without delay, and was
congratulating myself on my good luck, when I
saw by the light of the setting moon the form of
aman leaning over the garden gate. It was one
of the town watch, who had probably been ob-
serving my operations with curiosity. Seeing no
chance of escape, I put a bold face on the matter
and walked directly up to him.

“What on airth air you a-doin’?” asked the
man, grasping the collar of my jacket.



76 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

“T live here, sir, if you please,” I replied, “and
am going to the bonfire. I did n’t want to wake
up the old folks, that’s all.”

The man cocked his eye at me in the most
amiable manner, and released his hold.

“Boys is boys,’ he muttered. He did not
attempt to stop meas I slipped through the gate.

Once beyond his clutches, I took to my heels
and soon reached the Square, where I found forty
or fifty fellows assembled, engaged in building a
pyramid of tar-barrels. The palms of my hands
still tingled so that I could not join in the sport.
I stood in the doorway of the Nautilus Bank,
watching the workers, among whom I recognized
lots of my schoolmates, They looked like a legion
of imps, coming and going in the twilight, busy in
raising some infernal edifice. What a Babel of
voices it was, everybody directing everybody else,
and everybody doing everything wrong !

When all was prepared, some one applied a
match to the sombre pile. A fiery tongue thrust
itself out here and there, then suddenly the whole
fabric burst into flames, blazing and crackling
beautifully. This was a signal for the boys to
join hands and dance around the burning barrels,
which they did, shouting like mad _ creatures.
When the fire had burnt down a little, fresh staves
were brought and heaped on the pyre. In the
excitement of the moment I forgot my tingling
palms, and found myself in the thick of the ca-
rousal.



ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 77

Before we were half ready, our combustible
material was expended, and a disheartening kind
of darkness settled down upon us. The boys col-
lected together here and there in knots, consulting
as to what should be done. It yet lacked four or
five hours of daybreak, and none of us were in the
humor to return to bed. I approached one of the
groups standing near the town-pump, and discov-
ered in the uncertain light of the dying brands the
figures of Jack Harris, Phil Adams, Harry Blake,
and Pepper Whitcomb, their faces streaked with
perspiration and tar, and their whole appearance
suggestive of New Zealand chiefs.

“Hullo! here’s Tom Bailey!” shouted Pepper
Whitcomb; “he’ll join in!”

Of course he would. The sting had gone out
of my hands, and I was ripe for anything — none
the less ripe for not knowing what was on the
tapis. After whispering together for a moment,
the boys motioned me to follow them.

We glided out from the crowd and silently
wended our way through a neighboring alley, at
the head of which stood a tumble-down old barn,
owned by one Ezra Wingate. In former days this
was the stable of the mail-coach that ran between
Rivermouth and Boston. When the railroad super-
seded that primitive mode of travel, the lumbering
vehicle was rolled into the barn, and there it stayed.
The stage-driver, after prophesying the immediate
downfall of the nation, died of grief and apoplexy,



78 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

and the old coach followed in his wake as fast as
it could by quietly dropping to pieces. The barn
had the reputation of being haunted, and I think
we all kept very close together when we found
ourselves standing in the black shadow cast by
the tall gable. Here, in a low voice, Jack Harris
laid bare his plan, which was to burn the ancient
stage-coach.

“The old trundle-cart isn’t worth twenty-five
cents,” said Jack Harris, “and Ezra Wingate ought
to thank us for getting the rubbish out of the
way. But if any fellow here does n’t want to have
a hand in it, let him cut and run, and keep a quiet
tongue in his head ever after.”

With this he pulled out the staples that held the
rusty padlock, and the big barn door swung slowly
open. The interior of the stable was pitch-dark,
of course. As we made a movement to enter, a
sudden scrambling, and the sound of heavy bodies
leaping in all directions, caused us to start back in
terror.

“Rats!” cried Phil Adams.

“ Bats!”’ exclaimed Harry Blake.

“Cats!” suggested Jack Harris. ‘“Who’s
afraid?”

Well, the truth is, we were all afraid; and if the
pole of the stage had not been lying close to the
threshold, I do not believe anything on earth would
have induced us to cross it. We seized hold of
the pole-straps and succeeded with great trouble



ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 79

in dragging the coach out. The two fore wheels
had rusted to the axle-tree, and refused to revolve.
It was the merest skeleton of a coach. The cush-
ions had long since been removed, and the leather
hangings, where they had not crumbled away, dan-
gled in shreds from the worm-eaten frame. A load
of ghosts and a span of phantom horses to drag
them would have made the ghastly thing complete.

Luckily for our undertaking, the stable stood at
the top of a very steep hill. With three boys to
push behind, and two in front to steer, we started
the old coach on its last trip with little or no diffi-
culty. Our speed increased every moment, and,
the fore wheels becoming unlocked as we arrived
at the foot of the declivity, we charged upon the
crowd like a regiment of cavalry, scattering the
people right and left. Before reaching the bonfire,
to which some one had added several bushels of
shavings, Jack Harris and Phil Adams, who were
steering, dropped on the ground, and allowed the
vehicle to pass over them, which it did without
injuring them; but the boys who were clinging for
dear life to the trunk-rack behind fell over the
prostrate steersmen, and there we all lay in a heap,
two or three of us quite picturesque with the nose-
bleed.

The coach, with an intuitive perception of what
was expected of it, plunged into the centre of
the kindling shavings, and stopped. The flames
sprung up and clung to the rotten woodwork, which



80 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

burned like tinder. At this moment a figure was
seen leaping wildly from the inside of the blazing
coach. The figure made three bounds towards us,
and tripped over Harry Blake. It was Pepper
Whitcomb, with his hair somewhat singed, and
his eyebrows completely scorched off !

Pepper had slyly ensconced himself on the back
seat before we started, intending to have a neat
little ride down hill, and a laugh at us afterwards.
But the laugh, as it happened, was on our side, or
would have been, if half a dozen watchmen had
not suddenly pounced down upon us, as we lay
scrambling on the ground, weak with mirth over
Pepper’s misfortune. We were collared and
marched off before we well knew what had hap-
pened.

The abrupt transition from the noise and light
of the Square to the silent, gloomy brick room in
the rear.rf the Meat Market seemed like the work
of enchantment. We stared at each other aghast.

“ Well,” remarked Jack Harris, witha sickly smile,
“this zs a go!”

“No go, I should say,” whimpered Harry Blake,
glancing at the bare brick walls and the heavy
iron-plated door.

“Never say die,” muttered Phil Adams, dolefully.

The bridewell was a small low-studded chamber
built up against the rear end of the Meat Market,
and approached from the Square by a narrow pas-
sageway. A portion of the room was partitioned





The Interrupted Celebration






Full Text

The Baldwin Library





“ My name’s Tom Bailey ; what’s your name ?”
THE STORY OF
A BAD BOY

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
ILLUSTRATED BY
A. B. FROST



BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Che Viverside Press, Cambridge
M DCCC XCV
Copyright, 1869, 1877, and 1894,
By THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

Copyright, 1894,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO,

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co,
A PREFACE, IN WHICH THE AUTHOR
DECLINES TO WRITE ONE

; THE Publishers of the pres-
| ent new edition of THE Story
| or A Bap Boy have requested
my agency in the matter of
| procuring from the author
x1) a few lines by way of intro-





=== duction. It seems to me
that the Bad Boy requires no introduction to
a public that has tolerated him for upwards
of twenty years. Moreover, I am no believer
in-prefaces. The author who has not been
able in the course of several hundred pages
to say what he had to say is not likely to
accomplish that. feat in narrower compass.
On consulting with the Bad Boy, I find this
to be the view which he himself entertains.
He claims that he faithfully performed the
modest task he undertook, and is rot con-
7 PREFACE

scious that anything in the narrative requires
elucidation. As he concerned himself with
little that did not come within the sphere of
his own experience, he ran less risk of mak-
ing mistakes than if he had attempted to
write pure fiction. A generous destiny pro-
vided him with ample materials for his auto-
biography, and he invented next to nothing.
The statement of this fact incidentally and
economically answers the fifteen hundred or
two thousand insidious letters which have
been addressed to him by autograph-hunters
desiring to know whether “ The Story of a
Bad Boy” was a true story.

These are points, however, on which the
author would probably not touch, could he
be induced to write a preface. He would
deal, rather, with the subsequent fate of the
characters who lend what life there is to his
little seaport comedy. With one exception
they all have made their exit from that larger
stage on which they moved more or less suc-
cessfully. The exception is the Hon. Pepper
PREFACE v

Whitcomb. The newspapers, which relieve
our Chief Magistrates from the embarrass-
ment of selecting cabinet officers, foreign
ministers, collectors of the port, and other
high public functionaries — the newspapers,
I repeat, are at the present moment engaged
in putting Pepper Whitcomb into the next
vacancy that may occur on the bench of the
Supreme Court of the United States. The
historian of Rivermouth could have made
much of this dignified circumstance, and
much, also, of the singular fact that the old
Temple Grammar School building was de-
stroyed by fire, a number of years ago, in
precisely the manner foretold in the story:
a coincidence worth dwelling on. Perhaps,
too, the author, with the chronic weakness
peculiar to preface-writers — that sudden
impulse which seizes them to give their own
case away — might have been led to confess
a doubt touching his'wisdom in calling the
book “ The Story of a Bad Boy.” He wished
simply to draw a line at the start between
vi PREFACE

his hero—a natural, actual boy — and that
unwholesome and altogether improbable lit-
tle prig which had hitherto been held up as
an example to the young. The title of the
volume has doubtless turned aside many
excellent persons who would have found
nothing seriously reprehensible in the volume
itself. On the other hand, this lurid title
may have invited the curiosity of the vicious
and depraved, and trapped them into reading
an entirely harmless story. In which case
the author may felicitate himself on sowing
a seed in the wider field, for the vicious out-
number the virtuous ten to one. Besides,
the virtuous need no missionary.

As the author has never evinced the faint-
est regret in connection with the title chosen,
he probably feels none, and it would be idle
on my part to give further chase to a mere
conjecture.

The poet Wordsworth, assisted by Plautus,
maintains — to the everlasting confusion of
Mr. Darwin — that “the good die first.”
PREFACE uae

Perhaps this explains why the Bad Boy has
survived so many good boys in the juvenile
literature of the last two decades. It only
partly explains it, however. The secret of
his persistence may be stated without cast-
ing any shadow upon the general respec-
tability of his character. Indeed, the secret
was long ago kindly disclosed by Mr. How-
ells' when he said: “ No one else seems to
have thought of telling the story of a boy’s
life with so great desire to show what a boy’s
life is, and with so little purpose of teaching
what it should be; certainly no one else has
thought of doing this for the American boy.”

At the period when the author penned
these chapters he was far enough away from
his boyhood to regard it in retrospect, and
yet not so far removed as to be beyond the
lightest touch of its glamour. His attitude
was wholly without self-consciousness; no
photographer of manners had told him to
“look natural;” he did not have one eye on

1 In The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1870.
viii PREFACE
his inkstand and the other on his public.
He had a message, such as it was, and he
delivered it with as good grace as he could. .
If he wrote with little art, he wrote with suf-
ficient sincerity, and it so chanced that he
appealed directly not only to the sense of
youthful readers, but to the sympathy of such
men and women as still remembered that
they once were young.

To these two classes the author again of-
fers his unpretentious chronicle, now enriched
by sixty designs from the pencil of Mr. A. B.
Frost, but otherwise unchanged. The writer
tells me that in supervising the sheets for
the press he has a hundred times been
tempted to recast a page or a paragraph ;
but there was a morning bloom upon the
faulty text, a bloom that he could not touch
without destroying—a nameless quality of
unknowing youth, impossible to recapture,
and for the lack of which no later art could
compensate. T. B.A,

Tue Crags,
Tenant's Harbor, Maine,
CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN wHicH I INTRODUCE MYSELF. . ‘ . I

II. IN wHicu I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS . ‘ 5
III. On BoarD THE TYPHOON . . : : : . 12
IV. RIVERMOUTH . : : : : : 7 : 22

V. Tue Nurrer HousE AND THE NUTTER FAMILY . 34

VI. LicuTs AND SHADOWS . . : . 7 : 48
VII. ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT . : : : . - 71
VIII. THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH . . 7 : 87
IX. I BECOME ANR.M.C. . : : : ° - IOI

X. IÂ¥Ficgur Conway . : : . . . - 12

XI, ALL ABOUT Gypsy . : : : : ° . 124
XII. WINTER AT RIVERMOUTH . . . + 8 133
XIII, THe SNow-Fort ON SLATTER’s HILL. . - 141
XIV. THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN. . . - 155
XV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP : : . 178
XVI. IN WHICH SAILOR BEN sPINS A YARN . 7 - 193
XVII. How WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 2 . « 209
XVIII. A Froc HE wouLD A-WOOING GO . . 2 228
XIX. I BECOME A BLIGHTED BEING . : . . « 246

XX. IN wHIcH I prove MYSELF 10 BE THE GRANDSON
or My GRANDFATHER . . . : + 255
XXI. IN wuicH I LEAVE RIVERMOUTH . 7 . - 274
XXII. Exeunr OMNES. . . . . . . 281
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
“My name’s Tom Bailey; what’s yourname?” voutispiece

Not a Cherub : . I
Judge Pepper Whitcomb. . . . . : . 3
Black Sam . . . . . . . . ° » 5
My Indian Ancestor. . ; . oe . . 8

“Tom, you will be the death of me” . . . . Pn)

The Captain . . . . . : . . . . 13
Playing Checkers . 2. eee eee 6
In the Forecastle . . . . . . . . . 19
A Glimpse of the Battle. . . . . . . + 25
The Vanishing Landlord. . : : . . : 29
“ Miss Jocelyn’s respectful compliments” . . . » 33
A Fine Black Eye . . : . . ee ee 8

A Rainy Afternoon in the Garret. 7 . : . - 39
Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins. 8 ee nr )
Waiting for the Conflagration . . . . . . + 49
Mr. Grimshaw : . : . . . . 7 : 53
Swallowing the Candy. . see eee 8G
The Drama of William Tell . 7 7 7 : : . 63
Crushed . : : 7 : . . . . . . 67
Mr. Grimshaw looked Queer. : se . . : 73
The Interrupted Celebration . . . . : . . 8
“What would you do?” . . . . . 7 . 85
“Miscreants unknown” . . « «© © + + «+ 88
“Are you hurt?” . ar eee
xil LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Perfection of Pith and Poetry
The Result of the Explosion .
Gently checked .

The Initiation . . °
Charley Marden exhumed . 7
Preparing for the Battle . .
Phil Adams shaking Hands. .
Afterwards. : : :
Rev. Wibird Hawkins and Poll
Gypsy’s Lunch

Prize No. 2 . . : . .
Talking over the Great Storm
Eating His Apple

Kitty and Tom enjoying the Joke
The Commanders

Holding the Fort on Slatter’s Hill
The Unsuccessful Attack .

I faced Captain Nutter .

On Sandpeep Island . . . .
Drifting Away : . : .
The Telegraph . . 7 . .
A Midnight Call

Introducing Sailor Ben. . .

“ Lookin’ for a job?” :
Settling the Land Shark’s Account .
In the Cabin .

Cleaning Her Out. : . .
Miss Abigail awakes. . :
Bailey’s Battery booming. . .
The Discovery : ‘ . .
The Last Evening . 8

Removing the Spermaceti . .

96

99
103
105
109
IIS
118
11g

. 125

127

. 130

135
137
139

. 144

149
153
158

+ 163

169

. 181

184

. 189

196

- 199

205

- 214

221
222
231
240
243
LIST OF

In Love

The Cherub .

Iam a Blighted Being
The Admiral on Guard
Playing “Seven Up”
The Near-Sighted Man
My First Grief .

The Last of Gypsy

«

ILLUSTRATIONS

xiii

. 247

250

+ 251

262

. 267

271

+ 276

282
THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I INTRODUCE MYSELF

Tus is the story of
a bad boy. Well, not
such a very bad, but a
pretty bad boy; and I
ought to know, for I
am, or rather I was,
that boy myself.

Lest the title should
mislead the reader, I
hasten to assure him
here that I have no
dark confessions to
make. I call my story
the story of a bad boy,
partly to distinguish
myself from those
faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in
narratives of this kind, and partly because I really
was zot a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an
amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine - digestive
powers, and no hypocrite. I did not want to be
an angel and with the angels stand; I did not



Not a Cherub
2 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

think the missionary tracts presented to me by
the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were half so nice as
Robinson Crusoe; and I failed to send my little
pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands,
but spent it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy
candy. In short, I was a real human boy, such as
you may meet anywhere in New England, and no
more like the impossible boy in a story-book than
a sound orange is like one that has been sucked
dry. But let us begin at the beginning.
Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I
used to confront him at recess with the following
words: “My name’s Tom Bailey; what’s your
name?” If the name struck me favorably, I
shook hands with the new pupil cordially; but if
it did not, I would turn on my heel, for I was
particular on this point. Such names as Higgins,
Wiggins, and Spriggins were deadly affronts to
my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the
like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.
Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather
elderly boys by this time — lawyers, merchants,
sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not? Phil
Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul
at Shanghai, where I picture him to myself with
his head closely shaved —he never had too much
hair—and a long pigtail hanging down behind.
He is married, I hear ; and I hope he and she that
was Miss Wang Wang are very happy together,
sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of
IN WHICH I INTRODUCE MYSELF 3

tea in a sky-blue tower hung with bells. It is so
I think of him; to me he is henceforth a jeweled
mandarin, talking nothing
but broken China. Whit-
comb is a judge, sedate and
wise, with spectacles bal-
anced on the bridge of that
remarkable nose which, in
former days, was so plenti-
fully sprinkled with freckles
that the boys christened him
Pepper Whitcomb. Just to
think of little Pepper Whit-
comb being a judge ! What
would he do to me now, I
wonder, if I were to sing out “Pepper!” some
day in court? Fred Langdon is in California, in
the native-wine business— he used to make the
best licorice-water / ever tasted! Binny Wallace
sleeps in the Old South Burying-Ground; and
Jack Harris, too, is dead — Harris, who com-
manded us boys, of old, in the famous snow-ball]
battles of Slatter’s Hill. Was it yesterday I saw
him at the head of his regiment on its way to join
the shattered Army of the Potomac? Not yes-
terday, but six years ago. It was at the battle
of the Seven Pines. Gallant Jack Harris, that
never drew rein until he had dashed into the
Rebel battery! So they found him — lying across
the enemy’s guns.



Fudge Pepper Whitcomb
4 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

How we have parted, and wandered, and mar-
ried, and died! I wonder what has become of all
the boys who went to the Temple Grammar
School at Rivermouth when I was a youngster ?

“ All, all are gone, the old familiar faces ! ”

It is with no ungentle hand I summon them
back, for a moment, from that Past which has
closed upon them and upon me. How pleas-
antly they live again in my memory! Happy,
magical Past, in whose fairy atmosphere even
Conway, mine ancient foe, stands forth transfig-
ured, with a sort of dreamy glory encircling his
bright red hair !

With the old school formula I begin these
sketches of my boyhood. My name is Tom Bailey ;
what is yours, gentle reader? I take for granted
that itis neither Wiggins nor Spriggins, and that
we shall get on famously together, and be capital
friends forever.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN ‘PECULIAR VIEWS

I was born at Rivermouth, but, before I hada
chance to become very well acquainted with that
pretty New England town, my parents removed
to New Orleans, where my father invested his
money so securely in the banking business that
he was never able to get more than half of it out
again. But of this hereafter.

I was only eighteen months old at the time of
the removal, and it did not make much difference
to me where I
was, because I
was so. small;
but several years
later, when my
father proposed
to take me North
to be educated, I
had my own pe-
culiar views on
the subject. I instantly kicked over the little
negro boy who happened to be standing by me
at the moment, and, stamping my foot violently
on the floor of the piazza, declared that I would



Black Sam
6 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

not be taken away to live among a lot of Yan-
kees !

You see I was what is called “a Northern man
with Southern principles.” I had no recollection
of New England: my earliest memories were con-
nected with the South, with Aunt Chloe, my old
negro nurse, and with the great ill-kept garden in
the centre of which stood our house—a white-
washed brick house it was, with wide verandas —
shut out from the street by lines of orange, fig,
and magnolia trees. I knew I was born at the
North, but hoped nobody would find it out. I
looked upon the misfortune as something so
shrouded by time and distance that maybe nobody
remembered it. I never told my schoolmates I
was a Yankee, because they talked about the
Yankees in such a scornful way as to make me
feel that it was quite a disgrace not to be born in
Louisiana, or at least in one of the Border States.
And this impression was strengthened by Aunt
Chloe, who said, “ Dar ain’t no gentl’men in the
Norf noway,”’ and on one occasion terrified me
beyond measure by declaring: “If any of dem
mean whites tries to git me away from marster,
I’s jes’ gwine to knock ’em on de head wid a
gourd!”

The way this poor creature’s eyes flashed, and
the tragic air with which she struck at an imagi-
nary “mean white,” are among the most vivid
things in my memory of those days.
IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS 7

To be frank, my idea of the North was about as
accurate as that entertained by the well-educated
Englishmen of the present day concerning Amer-
ica. I supposed the inhabitants were divided into
two classes — Indians and white people; that the
Indians occasionally dashed down on New York,
and scalped any woman or child (giving the pref-
erence to children) whom they caught lingering in
the outskirts after nightfall; that the white men
were either hunters or schoolmasters, and that it
was winter pretty much all the year round. The
prevailing style of architecture I took to be log-
cabins.

With this delightful picture of Northern civili-
zation in my eye, the reader will easily understand
my terror at the bare thought of being transported
to Rivermouth to school, and possibly will forgive
me for kicking over little black Sam, and other-
wise misconducting myself, when my father an-
nounced his determination to me. As for kicking
little Sam —I always did that, more or less gen-
tly, when anything went wrong with me.

‘My father was greatly perplexed and troubled
by this unusually violent outbreak, and especially
by the real consternation which he saw written
in every line of my countenance. As little black
Sam picked himself up, my father took my hand
in his and led me thoughtfully to the library.

I can see him now as he leaned back in the
bamboo chair and questioned me. He appeared
8 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

strangely agitated on learning the nature of my
objections to going North, and proceeded at once
to knock down all my pine-log houses, and scatter
all the Indian tribes with
which I had populated the
greater portion of the East-
ern and Middle States.

“Who on earth, Tom,
has filled your brain with
such silly stories ?”” asked
my father, wiping the tears
from his eyes.

“Aunt Chloe, sir; she
told me.”

“ And you really thought
your grandfather wore a
blanket embroidered with
beads, and ornamented his
leggings with the scalps of
his enemies ?”

“Well, sir, I didn’t think that exactly.”

“Didn't think that exactly? Tom, you will be
the death of me.”

He hid his face in his handkerchief, and, when
he looked up, he seemed to have been suffering
acutely. I was deeply moved myself, though I did
not clearly understand what I had said or done to
cause him to feel so badly. Perhaps I had hurt his
feelings by thinking it even possible that Grand-
father Nutter was an Indian warrior.



po oS. —
My Indian Ancestor


IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS 9

My father devoted that evening and several sub-
sequent evenings to giving me a clear and succinct
account of New England; its early struggles, its
progress, and its present condition — faint and con-
fused glimmerings of all which I had obtained at
school, where history had never been a favorite
pursuit of mine.

—



“ Tom, you will be the death of me”

I was no longer unwilling to go North; on the
contrary, the proposed journey to a new world full
of wonders kept me awake nights. I promised
myself all sorts of fun and adventures, though I
was not entirely at rest in my mind touching the
10 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

savages, and secretly resolved to go on board the
ship — the journey was to be made by sea—with
a certain little brass pistol in my trousers pocket,
in case of any difficulty with the tribes when we
landed at Boston.

I could not get the Indian out of my head.
Only a short time previously the Cherokees — or
was it the Camanches ?— had been removed from
their hunting-grounds in Arkansas; and in the
wilds of the Southwest the red men were still a
source of terror to the border settlers. ‘Trouble
with the Indians”? was the staple news from
Florida published in the New Orleans papers. We
were constantly hearing of travelers being attacked
and murdered in the interior of that State. If
these things were done in Florida, why not in
Massachusetts ?

Yet long before the sailing day arrived I was
eager to be off. My impatience was increased by
the fact that my father had purchased for mea fine
little mustang pony, and shipped it to Rivermouth
a fortnight previous to the date set for our own
departure —for both my parents were to accom-
pany me. The pony (which nearly kicked me out
of bed one night in a dream), and my father’s
promise that he and my mother would come to
Rivermouth every other summer, completely re-
signed me to the situation. The pony’s name
was Gitana, which is the Spanish for gypsy; so I
always called her — she was a lady pony — Gypsy.
IN WHICH I ENTERTAIN PECULIAR VIEWS II

At last the time came to leave the vine-cov-
ered mansion among the orange-trees, to say good-
by to little black Sam (I am convinced he was
heartily glad to get rid of me), and to part with
simple Aunt Chloe, who, in the confusion of her
grief, kissed an eyelash into my eye, and then
buried her face in the bright bandana turban
which she had mounted that morning in honor of
our departure.

I fancy them standing by the open garden gate ;
the tears are rolling down Aunt Chloe’s cheeks ;
Sam’s six front teeth are glistening like pearls; I
wave my hand to him manfully, then I call out
“ good-by” in a muffled voice to Aunt Chloe;
they and the old home fade away. Iam never to
see them again!
CHAPTER III
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON

I po not remember much about the voyage to
Boston, for after the first few hours at sea I was
dreadfully unwell.

The name of our ship was the “A No. 1, fast-
sailing packet Typhoon.” I learned afterwards
that she sailed fast only in the newspaper adver-
tisements. My father owned one quarter of the
Typhoon, and that is why we happened to go in
her. I tried to guess which quarter of the ship he
owned, and finally concluded it must be the hind
quarter— the cabin, in which we had the cosiest
of staterooms, with one round window in the roof,
and two shelves or boxes nailed up against the
wall to sleep in.

There was a good deal of confusion on deck
while we were getting under way. The captain
shouted orders (to which nobody seemed to pay
any attention) through a battered tin trumpet, and
grew so red in the face that he reminded me of a.
scooped-out pumpkin with a lighted candle inside.
He swore right and left at the sailors without the
slightest regard for their feelings. They didn’t
mind it a bit, however, but went on singing:
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 13

“Heave ho!
With the rum below,
And hurrah for the Spanish Main O!”

I will not be positive about “the Spanish Main,”
but it was hurrah for something O. I considered
them very jolly fel-
lows, and so, indeed,
they were. One
weather-beaten tar in
particular struck my
fancy —a_ thick-set,
jovial man, about fifty
years of age, with
twinkling blue eyes
and a fringe of gray
hair circling his head
like a crown. As he
took off his tarpaulin
I observed that the
top of his head was
quite smooth and flat, as if somebody had sat down
on him when he was very young.

There was something noticeably hearty in this
man’s bronzed face, a heartiness that seemed to
extend to his loosely knotted neckerchief. But
what completely won my good will was a picture
of enviable loveliness painted on his left arm. It
was the head of a woman with the body of a fish.
Her flowing hair was of livid green, and she held
a pink comb in one hand. I never saw anything



The Captain
14 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

so beautiful. I determined to know that man. I
think I would have given my brass pistol to have
had such a picture painted on my arm.

While I stood admiring this work of art, a fat,
wheezy steam-tug, with the word AJAX in staring
black letters on the paddle-box, came puffing up
alongside the Typhoon. It was ridiculously small
and conceited, compared with our stately ship. I
speculated as to what it was going to do. Ina
few minutes we were lashed to the little monster,
which gave a snort and a shriek, and began back-
ing us out from the levee (wharf) with the greatest
ease,

I once saw an ant running away with a piece of
cheese eight or ten times larger than itself. I
could not help thinking of it, when I found the
chubby, smoky-nosed tug-boat towing the Typhoon
out into the Mississippi River.

In the middle of the stream we swung round,
the current caught us, and away we flew like a
great winged bird. Onlyit did not seem as if we
were moving. The shore, with the countless
steamboats, the tangled rigging of the ships, and
the long lines of warehouses, appeared to be glid-
ing away from us.

It was grand sport to stand on the quarter-deck
and watch all this. Before long there was nothing
to be seen on either side but stretches of low
swampy land, covered with stunted cypress-trees,
from which drooped delicate streamers of Spanish
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 15

moss —a fine place for alligators and congo snakes.
Here and there we passed a yellow sand-bar, and
here and there a snag lifted its nose out of the
water like a shark.

“ This is your last chance to see the city, Tom,”
said my father, as we swept round a bend of the
river.

I turned and looked. New Orleans was just a
colorless mass of something in the distance, and
the dome of the St. Charles Hotel, upon which the
sun shimmered for a moment, was no bigger than
the top of old Aunt Chloe’s thimble.

What do I remember next? the gray sky and
the fretful blue waters of the Gulf. The steam-tug
had long since let slip her hawsers dnd gone pant-
ing away with a derisive scream, as much as to
say, “I’ve done my duty, now look out for your-
self, old Typhoon !”

The ship seemed quite proud of being left to
take care of itself, and, with its huge white sails
bulged out, strutted off like a vain turkey. I had
been standing by my father near the wheel-house
all this while, observing things with that nicety
of perception which belongs only to children ; but
now the dew began falling, and we went below to
have supper.

The fresh fruit and milk, and the slices of cold
chicken looked very nice; yet somehow I had no
appetite. There was a general smell of tar about
everything. Then the ship gave sudden lurches
16 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

that made it a matter of uncertainty whether one
was going to put his fork to his mouth or into
his eye. The tumblers and wineglasses, stuck in
a rack over the table, kept clinking and clinking ;
and the cabin lamp, suspended by four gilt chains
from the ceiling, swayed to and fro crazily. Now
the floor seemed to rise, and now it seemed to sink
under one’s feet like a feather-bed.

There were not more than a dozen passengers
on board, including ourselves; and all of these,
excepting a bald-headed old gentleman — a retired
sea-captain — disappeared into their staterooms at
an early hour of the evening,

After supper was cleared away, my father and
the elderly gentleman,
whose name was Cap-
tain Truck, played at
checkers ; and I amused
myself for a while by
watching the trouble
they had in keeping the
men in the proper
places. Just at the most
exciting point of the
game, the ship would
careeen, and down would go the white checkers
pell-mell among the black. Then my father
laughed, but Captain Truck would grow very an-
gry, and vow that he would have won the game in
a move or two more, if the confounded old chicken-



Playing Checkers
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 17

coop—that’s what he called the ship — hadn’t
lurched.

“J—TJ think I will go to bed now, please,” I
said, laying my hand on my father’s knee, and feel-
ing exceedingly queer.

It was high time, for the Typhoon was plunging
about in the most alarming fashion. I was speed-
ily tucked away in the upper berth, where I felt a
trifle more easy at first. My clothes were placed
on a narrow Shelf at my feet, and it was a great
comfort to me to know that my pistol was so
handy, for I made no doubt we should fall in with
pirates before many hours. This is the last thing
I remember with any distinctness. At midnight,
as I was afterwards told, we were struck by a gale
which never left us until we came in sight of the
Massachusetts coast.

For days and days I had no sensible idea of
what was going on around me. That we were
being hurled somewhere upside-down, and that I
did not like it, was about all I knew. I have, in-
deed, a vague impression that my father used to
climb up to the berth and call me his “ Ancienc
Mariner,” bidding me cheer up. But the Ancient
Mariner was far from cheering up, if I recollect
rightly ; and I do not believe that venerable navi-
gator would have cared much if it had been an-
nounced to him, through a speaking-trumpet, that
‘a low, black, suspicious craft, with raking masts,
was rapidly bearing down upon us!”
18 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

In fact, one morning, I thought that such was
the case, for bang! went the big cannon I had
noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on
board, and which had suggested to me the idea of
pirates. Bang! went the gun again in a few sec-
onds. I made a feeble effort to get at my trousers
pocket. But the Typhoon was only saluting Cape
Cod — the first land sighted by vessels approach-
ing the coast from a southerly direction.

The vessel had ceased to roll, and my seasick-
ness passed away as rapidly as it came. I was all
right now, “ only a little shaky in my timbers and
a little blue about the gills,” as Captain Truck
remarked to my mother, who, like myself, had
been confined to the stateroom during the passage.

At Cape Cod the wind parted company with us
without saying as much as “ Excuse me;” so we
were nearly two days in making the run which in
favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven
hours. That ’s what the pilot said.

I was able to go about the ship now, and I lost
no time in cultivating the acquaintance of the
sailor with the green-haired lady on his arm. I
found him in the forecastle—a sort of cellar in
the front part of the vessel. He was an agreeable
sailor, as I had expected, and we became the best
of friends in five minutes.

He had been all over the world two or three
times, and knew no end of stories. According to
his own account, he must have been shipwrecked
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 19

at least twice a year ever since his birth. He had
served under Decatur when that gallant officer
peppered the Algerines and made them promise not



In the Forecastle

to sell their prisoners of war into slavery; he had
worked a gun at the bombardment of Vera Cruz
in the Mexican War, and he had been on Alexan-
der Selkirk’s Island more than once. There were
20 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

very few things he had not done in a seafaring
way.

“T suppose, sir,” I remarked, “ that your name
isn’t Typhoon ?”

“ Why, Lord love ye, lad, my name’s Benjamin
Watson, of Nantucket. But I’m a true blue Ty-
phooner,” he added, which increased my respect
for him; I do not know why, and I did not know
then whether Typhoon was the name of a vegeta-
ble or a profession,

Not wishing to be outdone in frankness, I dis-
closed to him that #zy name was Tom Bailey, upon
which he said he was very glad to hear it.

When we got more intimate, I discovered that
Sailor Ben, as he wished me to call him, was a
perfect walking picture-book. He had two an-
chors, a star, and a frigate in full sail on his right
arm; a pair of lovely blue hands clasped on his
breast, and I have no doubt that other parts of his
body were illustrated in the same agreeable man-
ner. I imagine he was fond of drawings, and took
- this means of gratifying his artistic taste. It was
certainly very ingenious and convenient. A port-
folio might be displaced, or dropped overboard ;
but Sailor Ben had his pictures wherever he went,
just as that eminent person in the poem

“ With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes”
was accompanied by music on all occasions.

The two hands on his breast, he informed me,
were a tribute to the memory of a dead mess.
ON BOARD THE TYPHOON 21

mate from whom he had parted years ago —and
surely a more touching tribute was never engraved
onatombstone. This caused me to think of my
parting with old Aunt Chloe, and I told him I
should take it as a great favor indeed if he would
paint a pink hand and a black ‘hand on my chest..
He said the colors were pricked into the skin with
needles, and that the operation was somewhat
painful. I assured him, in an off-hand manner,
_ that I did n’t mind pain, and begged him to set to
work at once.

The simple-hearted fellow, who was probably
not a little vain of his skill, took me into the fore-
castle, and was on the point of complying with my
request, when my father happened to look down
the gangway — a circumstance that rather inter-
fered with the decorative art.

I did not have another opportunity of conferring
alone with Sailor Ben, for the next morning, bright
and early, we came in sight of the cupola of the
Boston State House.
CHAPTER IV
RIVERMOUTH

Ir was a beautiful May morning when the Ty-
phoon hauled up at Long Wharf. Whether the
Indians were not early risers, or whether they
were away just then on a war-path, I could not
determine ; but they did not appear in any great
force —in fact, did not appear at all.

In the remarkable geography which I never
hurt myself with studying at New Orleans was a
picture representing the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers at Plymouth. The Pilgrim Fathers, in
rather odd hats and coats, are seen approaching
the savages; the savages, in no coats or hats
to speak of, are evidently undecided whether to
shake hands with the Pilgrim Fathers or to make
one grand rush and scalp the entire party. Now
this scene had so stamped itself on my mind that,
in spite of all my father had said, I was prepared
for some such greeting from the aborigines.
Nevertheless, I was not sorry to have my expec-
tations unfulfilled. By the way, speaking of the
Pilgrim Fathers, I often used to wonder why there
was no mention made of the Pilgrim Mothers.

While our trunks were being hoisted from the
RIVERMOUTH 23

hold of the ship, I mounted on the roof of the
cabin, and took a critical view of Boston. As we
came up the harbor, I had noticed that the houses
were huddled together on an immense hill, at the
top of which was a large building, the State
House, towering proudly above the rest, like an
amiable mother-hen surrounded by her brood of
many-colored chickens. A closer inspection did
not impress me very favorably. The city was
not nearly so imposing as New Orleans, which
stretches out for miles and miles, in the shape of
a crescent, along the banks of the majestic river.

I soon grew tired of looking at the masses of
houses, rising above one another in irregular tiers,
and was glad my father did not propose to remain
long in Boston. As I leaned over the rail in this
mood, a measly-looking little boy with no shoes
said that if I would come down on the wharf he
would lick me for two cents — not an exorbitant
price. But I did not go down. I climbed into
the rigging, and stared at him. This, as I was
rejoiced to observe, so exasperated him that he
stood on his head on a pile of boards, in order to
pacify himself.

The first train for Rivermouth left at noon.
After a late breakfast on board the Typhoon, our
trunks were piled upon a baggage-wagon, and our-
selves stowed away in a coach, which must have
turned at least one hundred corners before it set
us down at the railway station.
24 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

In less time than it takes to tell it, we were
shooting across the country at a fearful rate — now
clattering over a bridge, now screaming through a
_ tunnel; here we cut a flourishing village in two,
like a knife, and here we dived into the shadow of
a pine forest. Sometimes we glided along the
edge of the ocean, and could see the sails of ships
twinkling like bits of silver against the horizon ;
sometimes we dashed across rocky pasture-lands
where stupid-eyed cattle were loafing. It was fun
to scare the lazy-looking cows that lay round in
groups under the newly budded trees near the
railroad track.

We did not pause at any of the little brown sta-
tions on the route (they looked just like overgrown
black-walnut clocks), though at every one of them
a man popped out as if he were worked by ma-
chinery, and waved a red flag, and appeared as
though he would like to have us stop. But we
were an express train, and made no stoppages, ex-
cepting once or twice to give the engine a drink.

It is strange how the memory clings to some
things. It is over twenty years since I took that
first ride to Rivermouth, and yet, oddly enough,
I remember as if it were yesterday that, as we
_ passed slowly through the village of Hampton, we
~ saw two boys fighting behind a red barn. There
was also a shaggy yellow dog, who looked as if
he had begun to unravel, barking himself all up
into a knot with excitement. We had only’a hur-
RIVERMOUTH 25

ried glimpse of the battle —long enough, however,
to see that the combatants were equally matched
and very much in earnest. I am ashamed to say
how many times since I have speculated as to
which boy got licked. Maybe both the small
rascals are dead now (not in consequence of the
set-to, let us hope), or maybe they are married,
and have pug-
nacious urchins
of their own;
yet to this day
I sometimes
find myself won-
dering how that
fight turned
out.
Wehadbeen = %
riding perhaps
two hours and
a half, when we
shot by a tall ”
factory with a
chimney resembling a church-steeple ; then ihe lo-
comotive gave a scream, the engineer.rang his bell,
and we plunged into the twilight of a long wooden
building, open at both ends. Here we stopped,
and the conductor, thrusting his head in at the car
door, cried out, “ Passengers for Rivermouth !”
At last we had reached our journey’s end. On
the platform my father shook hands with a



A Glimpse of the Battle
26 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

straight, brisk old gentleman, whose face was very
serene and rosy. He had on a white hat anda
long swallow-tailed coat, the collar of which came
clear up above his ears. He did not look unlike
a Pilgrim Father. This, of course, was grand-
father Nutter, at whose house I was born. My
mother kissed him a great many times; and I was
glad to see him myself, though I naturally did not
feel very intimate with a person whom I had not
seen since I was eighteen months old.

While we were getting into the double-seated
wagon which grandfather Nutter had provided,
I took the opportunity of asking after the health
of the pony. The pony had arrived all right ten
days before, and was in the stable at home, quite
anxious to see me.

As we drove through the quiet old town, I
thought Rivermouth the prettiest place in the
world; and I think so still, The streets are long
and wide, shaded by gigantic American elms,
whose drooping branches, interlacing here and
there, span the avenue with arches graceful
enough to be the handiwork of fairies. Many of
the houses have small flower-gardens in front, gay
in the season with china-asters, and are substan-
tially built, with massive chimney-stacks and pro-
‘truding eaves. A beautiful river goes rippling by
the town, and, after turning and twisting among
a lot of tiny islands, empties itself into the sea.

The harbor is so fine that the largest ships can
RIVERMOUTH 27

sail directly up to the wharves and drop anchor.
Only they do not. Years ago it was a famous sea-
port. Princely fortunes were made in the West
India trade; and in 1812, when we were at war
with Great Britain, any number of privateers were
fitted out at Rivermouth to prey upon the mer-
chant vessels of the enemy. Certain people grew
suddenly and mysteriously rich. A great many
of “the first families” of to-day do not care to
trace their pedigree back to the time when their
grandsires owned shares in the Matilda Jane,
twenty-four guns.

Few ships come to Rivermouth now. Com-
merce drifted into other ports. The phantom
fleet sailed off one day, and never came back
again. The crazy old warehouses are empty ; and
barnacles and eelgrass cling to the piles of the
crumbling wharves, where the sunshine lies lov-
ingly, bringing out the faint spicy odor that
haunts the place — the ghost of the old dead West
India trade.

During our ride from the station, I was struck,
of course, only by the general neatness of the
houses and the beauty of the elm-trees lining the
streets. I describe Rivermouth now as I came to
know it afterwards.

Rivermouth is a very ancient town. In my day
there existed a tradition among the boys that it
was here Christopher Columbus made his first
landing on this continent. I remember having
28 ‘THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the exact spot pointed out to me by Pepper
Whitcomb. One thing is certain, Captain John
Smith, who afterwards, according to the legend,
married Pocahontas — whereby he got Powhatan
for a father-in-law — explored the river in 1614,
and was much charmed by the beauty of River-
mouth, which at that time was covered with wild
strawberry-vines.

Rivermouth figures prominently in all the colo-
nial histories. Every other house in the place has
its tradition more or less grim and entertaining,
If ghosts could flourish anywhere, there are cer-
tain streets in Rivermouth that would be full of
them. I do not know of a town with so many old
houses. Let us linger, for a moment, in front of
the one which the Oldest Inhabitant is always
sure to point out to the curious stranger.

It is a square wooden edifice, with gambrel
roof and deep-set window-frames. Over the win-
dows and doors there used to be heavy carvings —
oak-leaves and acorns, and angels’ heads with
wings spreading from the ears, oddly jumbled
together ; but these ornaments and other outward
signs of grandeur have long since disappeared,
A peculiar interest attaches itself to this -house,
not because of its age, for it has not been stand-
ing quite a century ; nor on account of its archi-
tecture, which is not striking — but because of the
illustrious men who at various periods have occu-
pied its spacious chambers.
RIVERMOUTH . 29

In 1770 it was an aristocratic hotel. At the
left side of the entrance stood a high post, from
which swung the sign of the Earl of Halifax. The
landlord was a stanch
loyalist — that is to
say, he believed in the
king, and when the
overtaxed colonies de-
termined to throw off
the British yoke, the
adherents to the Crown
held private meetings
in one of the back
rooms of the tavern.
This irritated the reb-
els, as they were
called; and one night
they made an attack on
the Earl of Halifax, tore down the signboard, broke
in the window-sashes, and gave the landlord hardly
time to make himself invisible over a fence in the
rear. ;

For several months the shattered tavern re-
mained deserted. At last the exiled innkeeper, on
promising to do better, was allowed to return; a
new sign, bearing the name of William Pitt, the
friend of America, swung proudly from the door-
post, and the patriots were appeased. Here it
was that the mail-coach from Boston twice a week,
for many a year, set down its load of travelers and



The Vanishing Landlord
30 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

gossip. For some of the details in this sketch, I
am indebted to a recently published chronicle of
those times.

It is 1782. The French fleet is lying in the
harbor of Rivermouth, and eight of the principal
officers, in white uniforms trimmed with gold lace,
have taken up their quarters at the sign of the
William Pitt. Who is this young and handsome
officer now entering the door of the tavern? It is
no less a personage than the Marquis Lafayette,
who has come all the way from Providence to visit
the French gentlemen boarding there. What a
gallant-looking cavalier he is, with his quick eyes
and coal-black hair! Forty years later he visited
the spot again ; his locks were gray and his step
was feeble, but his heart held its young love for
Liberty.

Who is this finely dressed traveler alighting
from his coach-and-four, attended by servants in
livery? Do you know that sounding name, written
in big valorous letters on the Declaration of Inde-
pendence — written as if by the hand of a giant ?
Can you not see it now?— Joun Hancock. This
is he.

Three young men, with their vee, are stand-
ing on the door-step of the William Pitt, bowing
politely, and inquiring in the most courteous terms
in the world if they can be accommodated. It
is the time of the French Revolution, and these
are three sons of the Duke of Orleans — Louis
RIVERMOUTH 31

Philippe and his two brothers. Louis Philippe
never forgot his visit to Rivermouth. Years
afterwards, when he was seated on the throne of
France, he asked an American lady, who chanced
to be at his court, if the pleasant old mansion was
still standing.

But a greater and a better man than the king of
the French has honored this roof. Here, in 1789,
came George Washington, the President of the
United States, to pay his final complimentary visit
to the State dignitaries. The wainscoted cham-
ber where he slept, and the dining-hall where he
entertained his guests, have a certain dignity and
sanctity which even the present Irish tenants
cannot wholly destroy.

During the period of my reign at Rivermouth,
an ancient lady, Dame Jocelyn by name, lived in
one of the upper rooms of this notable building.
She was a dashing young belle at the time of
Washington’s first visit to the town, and must
have been exceedingly coquettish and pretty, judg-
ing from a certain portrait on ivory still in the
possession of the family. According to Dame
Jocelyn, George Washington flirted with her just
a little bit —in what a stately and highly finished
manner can be imagined.

There was a mirror with a deep filigreed frame
hanging over the mantel-piece in this room. The
glass was cracked and the quicksilver rubbed off
or discolored in many places. When it reflected
32 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

your face, you had the singular pleasure of not
recognizing yourself. It gave your features the
appearance of having been run through a mince-
meat machine. But what rendered the looking-
glass a thing of enchantment to me was a faded
green feather, tipped with scarlet, which drooped
from the top of the tarnished gilt mouldings.
This feather Washington took from the plume of
his three-cornered hat, and presented with his
own hand to the worshipful Mistress Jocelyn the
day he left Rivermouth forever. I wish I could
describe the mincing genteel air, and the ill-con-
cealed self-complacency, with which the dear old
lady related the incident.

Many a Saturday afternoon have I climbed up
the rickety staircase to that dingy room, which
always had a flavor of snuff about it, to sit ona
stiff-backed chair and listen for hours together to
Dame Jocelyn’s stories of the olden time. How
she would prattle! She was bedridden — poor
creature !—and had not been out of the chamber
for fourteen years. Meanwhile the world had shot
ahead of Dame Jocelyn. The changes that had
taken place under her very nose were unknown to
this faded, crooning old gentlewoman, whom the
eighteenth century had neglected to take away with
the rest of its odd traps. She had no patience
with new-fangled notions. The old ways and the
old times were good enough for her. She had
never seen a steam-engine, though she had heard
RIVERMOUTH 33

“the dratted thing” screech inthe distance. In “er
day, when gentlefolk traveled, they went in their
own coaches. She did not see how respectable
people could bring themselves down to “riding in
a car with rag-tag and bobtail and Lord-knows-
who.” Poor old aristocrat! the landlord charged
her no rent for the room, and the neighbors took
turns in supplying her with meals. Towards the
close of her life— she lived to be ninety-nine —
she grew very fretful
and capricious about
her food. If she did
not chance to fancy
what was sent her,
she had no hesitation
in sending it back to
the giver with “ Miss
Jocelyn’s respectful
compliments.”

But I have been
gossiping too long —
and yet not too long
if I have impressed
upon the reader an idea of what a rusty, delightful
old town it was to which I had come to spend the
next three or four years of my boyhood.

A drive of twenty minutes from the station
brought us to the door-step of Grandfather Nut-
ter’s house. What kind of house it was, and what
sort of people lived in it, shall be told in another
chapter.



a
“ Miss Focelyn’s respectful compliments”
CHAPTER V
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE NUTTER FAMILY

Tue Nutter House —all the more prominent
dwellings in Rivermouth are named after some-
body ; for instance, there is the Walford House,
the Venner House, the Trefethen House, etc.,
though it by no means follows that they are
inhabited by the people whose names they bear —
the Nutter House, to resume, has been in our
family nearly a hundred years, and is an honor to
the builder (an ancestor of ours, I believe), sup-
posing durability to be a merit. If our ancestor
was a carpenter, he knew his trade. I wish I
knew mine as well. Such timber and such work-
manship do not often come together in houses
built nowadays.

Imagine. a low-studded structure, with a wide
hall running through the middle. At your right
hand, as you enter, stands a tall black mahogany
clock, looking like an Egyptian mummy set up on
end. On each side of the hall are doors (whose
knobs, it must be confessed, do not turn very
easily), opening into large rooms wainscoted and
rich in wood-carvings about the mantel-pieces and
cornices. The walls are covered with pictured
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 35

paper, representing landscapes and sea-views. In
the parlor, for example, this enlivening figure is
repeated all over the room: A group of English
peasants, wearing Italian hats, are dancing on a
lawn that abruptly resolves itself into a sea-beach,
upon which stands a flabby fisherman (nationality
unknown), quietly hauling in what appears to be
a small whale, and totally regardless of the dread-
ful naval combat going on just beyond the end of
his fishing-rod. On the other side of the ships is
the mainland again, with the same peasants dan-
cing. Our ancestors were very worthy people, but
their wall-papers were abominable.

There are neither grates nor stoves in these
quaint chambers, but splendid open chimney-
places, with room enough for the corpulent back-
log to turn over comfortably on the polished and-
irons, A wide staircase leads from the hall to the
second story, which is arranged much like the first.
Over this isthe garret. Ineed not tell a New Eng-
land boy what a museum of curiosities is the gar-
ret of a well-regulated New England house of fifty
or sixty years’ standing. Here meet together, as
if by some preconcerted arrangement, all the bro-
ken-down chairs of the household, all the spavined
tables, all the seedy hats, all the intoxicated-looking
boots, all the split walking-sticks that have retired
from business, “weary with the march of life.”
The pots, the pans, the trunks, the bottles — who
may hope to make an inventory of the number-
36 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

less odds and ends collected in this bewildering
lumber-room ? But what a place it is to sit of an
afternoon with the rain pattering on the roof! what
a place in which to read Gulliver’s Travels, or the
famous adventures of Rinaldo Rinaldini !

My grandfather's house stood a little back from
the main street, in the shadow of two handsome
elms, whose overgrown boughs would dash them-
selves against the gables whenever the wind blew
hard. In the rear was a pleasant garden, covering
perhaps a quarter of anacre, full of plum-trees and
gooseberry-bushes. These trees were old settlers,
and are all dead now, excepting one, which bears
a purple plum as big as an egg. This tree, as I
remark, is still standing, and a more beautiful tree
to tumble out of never grew anywhere. In the
northwestern corner of the garden were the stables
and carriage-house, opening upon a narrow lane.
You may imagine that I madean early visit to that
locality to inspect Gypsy. Indeed, I paid her a
visit every half-hour during the first day of my ar-
rival. At the twenty-fourth visit she trod on my
foot rather heavily, as a reminder, probably, that I
was wearing out my welcome. She was a knowing
little pony, that Gypsy, and I shall have much to
say of her in the’ course of these pages.

Gypsy’s quarters were all that could be wished,
but nothing among my new surroundings gave me
more satisfaction than the cosy sleeping apartment
that had been prepared for myself. It was the hall
room over the front door.
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 37

I had never before had a chamber all to myself,
and this one, about twice the size of our state-room
on board the Typhoon, was a marvel of neatness
and comfort. Pretty chintz curtains hung at the
window, and a patch quilt of more colors than were
in Joseph’s coat covered the
little truckle-bed. The pat-
tern of the wall-paper left no- j)\j
thing to be desired in that line.
On a gray background were
small bunches of leaves, un-
like any that ever grew in this
world; and on every other
bunch perched a yellow-bird,
pitted with crimson spots, as if it had just recov-
ered from a severe attack of the small-pox. That
no such bird ever existed did not detract from my
admiration of each one. There were two hundred
and sixty-eight of these birds in all, not counting
those split in two where the paper was badly joined.
I counted them once when I was laid up with
a fine black eye, and falling asleep immediately
dreamed that the whole flock suddenly took wing
and flew out of the window. From that time I was
never able to regard them as merely inanimate
objects.

A wash-stand in the corner, a chest of carved
mahogany drawers, a looking-glass in a filigreed
frame, and a high-backed chair studded with
brass nails like a coffin, constituted the furniture.



“A fine black eye”
38 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Over the head of the bed were two oak shelves,
holding perhaps a dozen books — among which
were Theodore, or The Peruvians ; Robinson Cru-
soe ; an odd volume of Tristram Shandy ; Baxter’s
Saints’ Rest, anda fine English edition of the Ara-
bian Nights, with six hundred wood-cuts by Harvey.

Shall I ever forget the hour when I first over-
hauled these books? I do not allude especially
to Baxter’s Saints’ Rest, which is far from being
a lively work for the young, but to the Arabian
Nights, and particularly Robinson Crusoe. The
thrill that ran into my fingers’ ends then has not run
out yet. Many a time did I steal up to this nest
of a room, and, taking the dog’s-eared volume from
its shelf, glide off into an enchanted realm, where
there were no lessons to get and no boys to smash
my kite. In alidless trunk in the garret I subse-
quently unearthed another motley collection of nov-
els and romances, embracing the adventures of
Baron Trenck, Jack Sheppard, Don Quixote, Gil
Blas, and Charlotte Temple — all of which I fed
upon like a bookworm.

I never come across a copy of any of those works
without feeling a certain tenderness for the yellow-
haired little rascal who used to lean above the
magic pages hour after hour, religiously believing
every word he read, and no more doubting the
reality of Sindbad the Sailor, or the Knight of the
Sorrowful Countenance, than he did the existence
of his own grandfather.


A Rainy Afternoon in the Garret
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 4!

Against the wall at the foot of the bed hung a
single-barrel shot-gun —placed there by Grand-
father Nutter, who knew what a boy loved, if ever
agrandfatherdid. As the trigger of the gun had
been accidentally twisted off, it was not, perhaps,
the most dangerous weapon that could be placed
in the hands of youth. In this maimed condition
its bump of destructiveness was much less than
that of my small brass pocket-pistol, which I at
once proceeded to suspend from one of the nails
supporting the fowling-piece, for my vagaries con-
cerning the red man had been entirely dispelled.

Having introduced the reader to the Nutter
House, a presentation to the Nutter family nat-
urally follows. The family consisted of my grand-
father ; his sister, Miss Abigail Nutter; and Kitty
Collins, the maid-of-all-work.

Grandfather Nutter was a hale, cheery old gentle-
man, as straight and as bald as anarrow. He had
been a sailor in early life; that is to say, at the age
of ten years he fled from the multiplication-table,
and ran away to sea. A single voyage satisfied
him. There never was but one of our family who
did not run away to sea, and this one died at his
birth. My grandfather had also been a soldier —
a captain of militiain 1812. If I owe the British
nation anything, I owe thanks to that particular
British soldier who put a musket-ball into the fleshy
part of Captain Nutter’s leg, causing that noble
warrior a slight permanent limp, but offsetting the
42 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

injury by furnishing him with material for a story
which the old gentleman was never weary of telling

and I never weary of listening to. The story, in

brief, was as follows.

At the breaking out of the war, an English fri-
gate lay for several days off the coast near River-
mouth. A strong fort defended the harbor, and a
regiment of minute-men, scattered at various points
alongshore, stood ready to repel the boats, should
the enemy try to effect alanding. Captain Nut-
ter had charge of a slight earthwork just outside
the mouth of the river. Late one thick night the
sound of oars was heard; the sentinel tried to fire
off his gun at half-cock, and could not, when Captain
Nutter sprung upon the parapet in the pitch dark-
ness, and shouted, “ Boat ahoy!”” A musket-shot
immediately embedded itself in the calf of his leg.
The Captain tumbled into the fort, and the boat,
which had probably come in search of water, pulled
back to. the frigate.

‘This was my grandfather’s only exploit during
the war. That his prompt and bold conduct was
instruinental in teaching the enemy the hopeless-
ness of attempting to conquer such a people was
among the firm beliefs of my boyhood.

At the time I came to Rivermouth my grand-
father had retired from active pursuits, and was
living at ease on his money, invested principally
in shipping. He had been a widower many years ;
a maiden sister, the aforesaid Miss Abigail, man-
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 43

aging his household. Miss Abigail also managed”
her brother, and her brother’s servant, and the vis-
itor at her brother's gate — not in a tyrannical




oho oee

\ 4
RY
\ }




Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins

af

spirit, but from a philanthropic desire to be useful
to everybody. In person she was tall and angu-
lar; she had a gray complexion, gray eyes, gray
eyebrows, and generally wore a gray dress. Her
strongest weak point was a belief in the efficacy
of “hot-drops ” as a cure for all known diseases.
If there were ever two persons who seemed to

(
44 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

dislike each other, Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins
were those persons. If ever two persons really
loved each other, Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins
were those persons also. They were always either
skirmishing or having a cup of tea lovingly to-
gether,

Miss Abigail was very fond of me, and so was
Kitty ; and in the course of their disagreements
each let me into the private history of the other.

According to Kitty, it was not originally my
grandfather’s intention to have Miss Abigail at
the head of his domestic establishment. She had
swooped down on him (Kitty's own words), with a
band-box in one hand and a faded blue cotton
umbrella, still in existence, in the other. Clad in
this singular garb —I do not remember that Kitty
alluded to any additional peculiarity of dress —
Miss Abigail had made her appearance at the
door of the Nutter House on the morning of my
grandmother’s funeral. The small amount of bag-
gage which the lady brought with her would have
led the superficial observer to infer that Miss Abi-
gail’s visit was limited to a few days. I run ahead
of my story in saying she remained seventeen
years! How much longer she would have re-
mained can never be definitely known now, as she
died at the expiration of that period.

Whether or not my grandfather was quite
pleased by this unlooked-for addition to his family
is a problem. He was very kind always to Miss
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY = 45

Abigail, and seldom opposed her; though I think
she must have tried his patience sometimes, es-
pecially when she interfered with Kitty.

Kitty Collins, or Mrs. Catherine, as she per-
ferred to be called, was descended in a direct line
from an extensive family of kings who formerly
ruled over Ireland. In consequence of various
calamities, among which the failure of the potato-
crop may be mentioned, Miss Kitty Collins, in
company with several hundred of her countrymen
and countrywomen—also descended from kings
—came over to America in an emigrant ship, in
the year eighteen hundred and something

I do not know what freak of fortune caused the
royal exile to turn up at Rivermouth; but turn
up she did, a few months after arriving in this
country, and was hired by my grandmother to do
“general housework” for the modest sum of four
shillings and sixpence a week.

Kitty had been living about seven years in my
grandfather's family when she unburdened her
heart of a secret which had been weighing upon
it all that time. It may be said of people, as it is
said of nations, ‘‘ Happy are they that have no his-
tory.” Kitty hada history, and a pathetic one, I
think,

On board the emigrant ship that brought her
to America, she became acquainted with a sailor,
who, being touched by Kitty’s forlorn condition,
was very good to her. Long before the end of the
40 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

voyage, which had been tedious and perilous, she
was heart-broken at the thought of separating
from her kindly protector; but they were not to
part just yet, for the sailor returned Kitty's affec-
tion, and the two were married on their arrival at
port. Kitty’s husband — she would never men-
tion his name, but kept it locked in her bosom
like some precious relic — had a considerable sum
of money when the crew were paid off; and the
young couple — for Kitty was young then — lived
very happily in a lodging-house on South Street,
near the docks. This was in New York.

The days flew by like hours, and the stocking
in which the little bride kept the funds shrunk
and shrunk, until at last there were only three or
four dollars left in the toe of it. Then Kitty was
troubled ; for she knew her sailor would have to
go to sea again unless he could get employment
on shore. This he endeavored to do, but not with
much success. One morning as usual he kissed
her good day, and set out in search of work.

“Kissed me good-by, and called me his little
Irish lass,” sobbed Kitty, telling the story —
“kissed me good-by, and, Heaven help me! I
niver set oi on him nor on the likes of him again.”

He never came back. Day after day dragged
on, night after night, and then the weary weeks.
What had become of him? Had he been mur-
dered? had he fallen into the docks? had he—
deserted her? No! she could not believe that; he
THE NUTTER HOUSE AND THE FAMILY 47

was too brave and tender and true. Shecould not
believe that. He was dead, dead, or he would
come back to her.

Meanwhile the landlord of the lodging-house
turned Kitty into the streets, now that “ her
man” was gone, and the payment of the rent
doubtful. She got a place as a servant. The fam-
ily she lived with shortly moved to Boston, and she
accompanied them; then they went abroad, but
Kitty would not leave America. Somehow she
drifted to Rivermouth, and for seven long years
never gave speech to her sorrow, until the kind-
ness of strangers, who had become friends to her,
unsealed the heroic lips.

Kitty’s story, you may be sure, made my grand-
parents treat her more kindly than ever. In time
she grew to be regarded less as a servant than as
a friend in the home circle, sharing its joys and
sorrows — a faithful nurse, a willing slave, a happy
spirit in spite of all. I fancy I hear her singing
over her work in the kitchen, pausing from time
to time to make some witty reply to Miss Abigail
— for Kitty, like all her race, had a vein of uncon-
scious humor. Her bright honest face comes to
me out from the past, the light and life of the
Nutter House when I was a boy at Rivermouth.
CHAPTER VI
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

THE first shadow that fell upon me in my new
home was caused by the return of my parents to
New Orleans. Their visit was cut short by busi-
ness which required my father’s presence in
Natchez, where he was establishing a branch of
the banking-house. When they had gone, a sense
of loneliness such as I had never dreamed of filled
my young breast. I crept away to the stable, and,
throwing my arms about Gypsy’s neck, sobbed
aloud. She too had come from the sunny South,
and was now a stranger in a strange land.

The little mare seemed to realize our situation,
and gave me all the sympathy I could ask, re-
peatedly rubbing her soft nose over my face and
lapping up my salt tears with evident relish.

When night came, I felt still more lonesome.
My grandfather sat in his armchair the greater
part of the evening, reading the Rivermouth
Barnacle, the local newspaper. There was no gas
in those days, and the Captain read by the aid of
a small block-tin lamp, which he held in one hand.
I observed that he had a habit of dropping off
into a doze every three or four minutes, and I for-


Waiting for the Conflagration
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 51

got my homesickness at intervals in watching
him. Two or three times, to my vast amusement,
he scorched the edges of the newspaper with the
wick of the lamp; and at about half past eight
o’clock I had the satisfaction —I am sorry to con-
fess it was a satisfaction—of seeing the River-
mouth Barnacle in flames.

My grandfather leisurely extinguished the fire
with his hands, and Miss Abigail, who sat near
a low table, knitting by the light of an astral lamp,
did not even look up. She was quite used to this
catastrophe.

There was little or no conversation during the
evening. In fact, I do not remember that any
one spoke at all, excepting once, when the Captain
remarked, in a meditative manner, that my parents
“must have reached New York by this time ;” at
which supposition I nearly strangled myself in at-
tempting to intercept a sob.

The monotonous “click click” of Miss Abi-
gail’s needles made me nervous after a while, and
finally drove me out of the sitting-room into the
kitchen, where Kitty caused me to laugh by say-
ing Miss Abigail thought that what I needed was
“a good dose of hot-drops’’—a remedy she was
forever ready to administer in all emergencies.
If a boy broke his leg, or lost his mother, I believe
Miss Abigail would have given him hot-drops.

Kitty laid herself out to be entertaining. She
told me several funny Jrish stories, and described
52 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

some of the odd people living in the town; but,
in the midst of her comicalities, the tears would
involuntarily ooze out of my eyes, though I was
not a lad much addicted to weeping. Then Kitty
would put her arms around me, and tell me not to
mind it — that it was not asif I had been left alone
in a foreign land with no one to care for me, like
a poor girl whom she had once known. I bright-
ened up before long, and told Kitty all about the
Typhoon and the old seaman, whose name I tried
in vain to recall, and was obliged to fall back on
plain Sailor Ben.

I was glad when ten o’clock came, the bedtime
for young folks, and old folks too, at the Nutter
House. Alone in the hall-chamber I had my cry
out, once for all, moistening the pillow to such an
extent that I was obliged to turn it over to find
a dry spot to go to sleep on.

My grandfather wisely concluded to put me to
school at once. If I had been permitted to go
mooning about the house and stables, I should
have kept my discontent alive for months. The
next morning, accordingly, he took me by the
hand, and we set forth for the academy, which
was located at the farther end of the town.

The Temple School was a two-story brick
building, standing in the centre of a great square
piece of land, surrounded by a high picket fence.
There were three or four sickly trees, but no grass,
in this inclosure, which had been worn smooth and
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 53

hard by the tread of multitudinous feet. I noticed
here and there small holes scooped in the ground,
indicating that it was the season for marbles. A
better playground for base-ball could not have been
devised.

On reaching the schoolhouse door, the Captain
inquired for Mr. Grim-
shaw. The boy who an-
swered our knock ush-
ered us into a side room,
and in a few minutes —
during which my eye took
in forty-two caps hung on
forty-two wooden pegs—
Mr. Grimshaw made his
appearance. He was a
slender man, with white,
fragile hands, and eyes
that glanced half a dozen different ways at once
—a habit probably acquired from watching the
boys.

After a brief consultation, my grandfather pat-
ted me on the head and left me in charge of this
gentleman, who seated himself in front of me and
proceeded to sound the depth, or more properly
speaking, the shallowness, of my attainments. I
suspect that my historical information rather star-
tled him. I recollect I gave him to understand
that Richard III. was the last king of England.

This ordeal over, Mr. Grimshaw rose and bade



Mr. Grimshaw
54 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

me follow him. A door opened, and I stood in
the blaze of forty-two pairs of upturned eyes. I
was a cool hand for my age, but I lacked the
boldness to face this battery without wincing. In
a sort of dazed way I stumbled after Mr. Grimshaw
down a narrow aisle between two rows of desks,
and shyly took the seat pointed out to me.

The faint buzz that had floated over the school-
room at our entrance died away, and the inter-
rupted lessons were resumed. By degrees I re-
covered my coolness, and ventured to look around
me.

The owners of the forty-two caps were seated at
small green desks like the one assigned to me.
The desks were arranged in six rows, with spaces
between just wide enough to prevent the boys’
whispering. A blackboard set into the wall ex-
tended clear across the end of the room; on a
raised platform near the door stood the master’s
table; and directly in front of this was a recita-
tion bench capable of seating fifteen or twenty
pupils. A pair of globes, tattooed with dragons
and winged horses, occupied a shelf between two
windows, which was so high from the floor that
nothing but a giraffe could have looked out of them.

Having possessed myself of these details, I
scrutinized my new acquaintances with uncon-
cealed curiosity, instinctively selecting my friends
and picking out my enemies—and in only two
cases did I mistake my man,
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 55

A sallow boy with bright red hair, sitting in the
fourth row, shook his fist at me furtively several
times during the morning. I hada presentiment
I should have trouble with that boy some day —
a presentiment subsequently realized.

On my left was a chubby little fellow with a
great many freckles (this was Pepper Whitcomb),
who made some mysterious motions to me. I did
not understand them, but, as they were clearly of
a pacific nature, I winked my eye at him. This
appeared to be satisfactory, for he then went on
with his studies. At recess he gave me the core
of his apple, though there were several applicants
for it.

Presently a boy in a loose olive-green jacket
with two rows of brass buttons, held up a folded
paper behind his slate, intimating that it was in-
tended for me. The paper was passed skillfully
from desk to desk until it reached my hands. On
opening the scrap, I found that it contained
a small piece of molasses candy in an extremely
humid state. This was certainly kind. I nodded
my acknowledgments and hastily slipped the
delicacy into my mouth. In a second I felt my
tongue grow red-hot with cayenne pepper.

My face must have assumed a comical expres-
sion, for the boy in the olive-green jacket gave an
hysterical laugh, for which he was instantly pun-
ished by Mr. Grimshaw. I swallowed the fiery
candy, though it brought the water to my eyes,
56 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

and managed to look so unconcerned that I was
the only pupil in the form who escaped question-
ing as to the cause of Marden’s misdemeanor.
Marden was his name.

Nothing else occurred that
morning to interrupt the ex-
ercises, excepting that a boy
in the reading class threw us
all into convulsions by call-
ing Absalom “ Abol’som, O my son Abol’-
som!” I laughed as loud as
any one, but I am not so sure
that I should not have pronounced it Abol'som
myself.

At recess several of the scholars came to my
desk and shook hands with me, Mr. Grimshaw
having previously introduced me to Phil Adams,
charging him to see that I got into no trouble.
My new acquaintances suggested that we should
go to the playground. We were no sooner out of
doors than the boy with the red hair thrust his way
through the crowd and placed himself at my side.

“T say, youngster, if you’re comin’ to this
school you’ve got to toe the mark.”

I did not see any mark to toe, and did not un-
derstand what he meant; but I replied politely,
that, if it was the custom of the school, I should
be happy to toe the mark, if he would point it out
to me.



Swallowing the Candy
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 57

“T don’t want any of your sarse,”’ said the boy,
scowling.

“Look here, Conway!” cried a clear voice
from the other side of the playground, “you let
young Bailey alone. He’s a stranger here, and
might be afraid of you, and thrash you. Why do
you always throw yourself in the way of getting
thrashed ?”

I turned to the speaker, who by this time had
reached the spot where we stood. Conway slunk
off, favoring me with a parting scowl of defiance.
I gave my hand to the boy who had befriended
me — his name was Jack Harris— and thanked
him for his good-will.

“T tell you what it is, Bailey,” he said, return-
ing my pressure good-naturedly, “you'll have to
fight Conway before the quarter ends, or you'll
have no rest. That fellow is always hankering
after a licking, and of course you’ll give him one
by and by; but what’s the use of hurrying up an
unpleasant job? lLet’s have some base-ball. By
the way, Bailey, you were a good kid not to let on
to Grimshaw about the candy. Charley Marden
would have caught it twice as heavy. He’s sorry
he played the joke on you, and told me to tell you
so. Hallo, Blake! where are the bats?”

This was addressed to a handsome, frank-looking
lad of about my own age, who was engaged just
then in’ cutting his initials on the bark of a tree
near the schoolhouse. Blake shut up his penknife
and went off to get the bats.
58 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

During the game which ensued I made the ac-
quaintance of Charley Marden, and Binny Wallace,
Pepper Whitcomb, Harry Blake, and Fred Lang-
don. These boys, none of them more than a year
or two older than I (Binny Wallace was younger),
were ever after my chosen comrades. Phil Adams
and Jack Harris were considerably our seniors, and
though they always treated us “kids” very kindly,
they generally went with another set. Of course,
before long I knew all the Temple boys more or
less intimately, but the five I have named were my
constant companions.

My first day at the Temple Grammar School was
on the whole satisfactory. I had made several
warm friends, and only two permanent enemies —
Conway and his echo, Seth Rodgers ; for these two
always went together like a deranged stomach and
a headache.

Before the end of the week I had my studies
well in hand. I was a little ashamed at finding
myself at the foot of the various classes, and
secretly determined to deserve promotion. The
school was an admirable one. I might make this
part of my story more entertaining by picturing
Mr. Grimshaw as a tyrant with a red nose and a
large stick ; but unfortunately for the purposes of
sensational narrative, Mr. Grimshaw was a quiet,
kind-hearted gentleman. Though a rigid disciplin-
arian, he had a keen sense of justice, was a good
reader of character, and the boys respected him.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 59

There were two other teachers — a French tutor
and a writing-master, who visited the school twice
a week. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were
dismissed at noon, and these half-holidays were
the brightest epochs of my existence.

Daily contact with boys who had not been
brought up as gently as I worked an immediate,
and, in some respects, a beneficial change in my
character. I had the nonsense taken out of me, as
the saying is — some of the nonsense, at least.
I became more manly and self-reliant. I discovered
that the world was not created exclusively on my
account. In New Orleans I labored under the de-
lusion that it was. Having neither brother nor
sister to give up to at home, and being, moreover,
the largest pupil at school there, my will had sel-
dom been opposed. At Rivermouth matters were
different, and I was not long in adapting myself to
the altered circumstances. Of course I got many
severe rubs, often unconsciously given; but I had
the sense to see that I was all the better for them.

My social relations with my new schoolfellows
were the pleasantest possible. There was always
some exciting excursion on foot — a ramble through
the pine woods, a visit to the Devil’s Pulpit, a high
cliff in the neighborhood — or a surreptitious row —
on the river, involving an exploration of a group of
diminutive islands, upon ‘one of which we pitched
a tent and played we were the Spanish sailors who
60 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

got wrecked there years ago. But the endless
pine forest that skirted the town was our favorite
haunt. There was a great green pond hidden some-
where in its depths, inhabited by a monstrous col-
ony of turtles. Harry Blake, who had an eccentric
passion for carving his name on everything, never
let a captured turtle slip through his fingers with-
out leaving his mark engraved on its shell. He
must have lettered about two thousand from first to
last. We used to call them Harry Blake’s sheep.

These turtles were of a discontented and migra-
tory turn of mind, and we frequently encountered
two or three of them on the cross-roads several
miles from their ancestral mud. Unspeakable was
our delight whenever we discovered one soberly
walking off with Harry Blake’s initials! I have no
doubt there are, at this moment, fat ancient tur-
tles wandering about that gummy woodland with
H. B. neatly cut on their venerable backs.

It soon became a custom among my playmates
to make our barn their rendezvous. Gypsy proved
a strong attraction. Captain Nutter bought me
a little two-wheeled cart, which she drew quite
nicely, after kicking out the dasher and breaking
the shafts once or twice. With our lunch-baskets
and fishing-tackle stowed away under the seat, we
used to start off early in the afternoon for the sea-
shore, where there were countless marvels in the
shape of shells, mosses, and kelp. Gypsy enjoyed
the sport as keenly as any of us, even going so far,
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 61

one day, as to trot down the beach into the sea
where we were bathing. As she took the cart with
her, our provisions were not much improved. I
shall never forget how squash-pie tastes after being
soused in the Atlantic Ocean. Soda-crackers dipped
in salt water are palatable, but not squash-pie.

There was a good deal of wet weather during
those first six weeks at Rivermouth, and we set
ourselves at work to find some in-door amusement
for our half-holidays. It was all very well for
Amadis de Gaul and Don Quixote not to mind the
rain; they had iron overcoats, and were not, from
all we can learn, subject to croup and the guidance
of their grandfathers. Our case was different.

“Now, boys, what shall we do?” I asked, ad-
dressing a thoughtful conclave of seven, assembled
in our barn one dismal rainy afternoon.

‘“Let’s have a theatre,” suggested Binny Wal-
lace.

The very thing! But where? The loft of the
stable was ready to burst with hay provided for
Gypsy, but the long room over the carriage-house
was unoccupied. The place of all places! My
managerial eye saw at a glance its capabilities for
a theatre. I had been to the play a great many
times in New Orleans, and was wise in matters
pertaining to the drama. So here, in due time,
was set up some extraordinary scenery of my
own painting. The curtain, I recollect, though it
worked smoothly enough on other occasions, inva-
62 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

riably hitched during the performances ; and it
often required the united energies of the Prince of
Denmark, the King, and the Grave-digger, with
an occasional hand from “the fair Ophelia” (Pep-
per Whitcomb in a low-necked dress), to hoist
that bit of green cambric.

The theatre, however, was a success, so far as it
went. I retired from the business with no fewer
than fifteen hundred pins, after deducting the head-
less, the pointless, and the crooked pins with which
our doorkeeper frequently got “stuck.” From first
to last we took in a great deal of this counterfeit
money. The price of admission to the “ River-
mouth Theatre” was twenty pins. I played all
the principal parts myself —not that I was a finer
actor than the other boys, but because I owned the
establishment.

At the tenth representation, my dramatic career
was brought to a close by an unfortunate circum-
stance. We were playing the drama of “ William
Tell the Hero of Switzerland.” Of course I was
William Tell, in spite of Fred Langdon, who wanted
to act that character himself. I would not let him,
so he withdrew from the company, taking the only
bow and arrow we had. I made a cross-bow out
of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without
him. We had reached that exciting scene where
Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to
shoot the apple from his son’s head. Pepper
Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 63

parts, was my son. To guard against mischance,
a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handker-
chief over the upper portion of Whitcomb’s face,
while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a
strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and









i | hil

can SCAU TY















The Drama of William Tell

the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its
russet cheek fairly towards me.

Ican see poor little Pepper now, as he stood with-
out flinching, waiting for me to perform my great
feat. I raised the cross-bow amid. the breathless
silence of the crowded audience — consisting of
seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Col-
lins, who insisted on paying her way in with a
clothes-pin. I raised the cross- bow, I repeat.
64 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Twang! went the whipcord ; but, alas! instead of
hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper
Whitcomb’s mouth, which happened to be open at
the time, and destroyed my aim.

I shall never be able to banish that awful mo-
ment from my memory. Pepper’s roar, expres-
sive of astonishment, indignation, and pain, is still
ringing in myears. I looked upon him as a corpse,
and, glancing not far into the dreary future, pic-
tured myself led forth to execution in the presence
of the very same spectators then assembled.

Luckily poor Pepper was not seriously hurt ; but
Grandfather Nutter, appearing in the midst of the
confusion (attracted by the howls of young Tell),
issued an injunction against all theatricals there-
after,and the place was closed; not, however, with-
out a farewell speech from me, in which I said that
this would have been the proudest moment of my
life if I had not hit Pepper Whitcomb in the mouth.
Whereupon the audience (assisted, I am glad to
state, by Pepper) cried “Hear! hear!” I then at-
tributed the accident to Pepper himself, whose
mouth, being open at the instant I fired, acted
upon the arrow much after the fashion of a whirl-
pool, and drew in the fatal shaft. J was about to
explain how acomparatively small maelstrom could
suck in the largest ship, when the curtain fell of
its own accord, amid the shouts of the audience.

This was my last appearance on any stage. It
was some time, though, before I heard the end of
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 65

the William Tell business. Malicious little boys
who had not been allowed to buy tickets to my
theatre used to cry out after me in the street :
“© Who killed Cock Robin ?’
‘J,’ said the sparrer,

‘With my bow and arrer,
I killed Cock Robin!’ ”

The sarcasm of this verse was more than I could
stand. And it made Pepper Whitcomb pretty mad
to be called Cock Robin, I can tell you !

So the days glided on, with fewer clouds and
more sunshine than fall to the lot of most boys.
Conway was certainly a cloud. Within school-
bounds he seldom ventured to be aggressive ; but
whenever we met about town he never failed to
brush against me, or pull my cap over my eyes,
or drive me distracted by inquiring after my fam-
ily in New Orleans, always alluding to them as
highly respectable colored people.

Jack Harris was right when he said Conway
would give me no rest until I fought him. I felt
it was ordained ages before our birth that we
should meet on this planet and fight. With the
view of not running counter to destiny, I quietly
prepared myself for the impending conflict. The
scene of my dramatic triumphs was turned into a
gymnasium for this purpose, though I did not
openly avow the fact to the boys. By persistently
standing on my head, raising heavy weights, and
going hand over hand up a ladder, I developed my
66 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

muscle until my little body was as tough as a hick-
ory knot and as supple as tripe. I also took occa-
sional lessons in the noble art of self-defense,
under the tuition of Phil Adams.

I brooded over the matter until the idea of
fighting Conway became a part of me. I fought
him in imagination during school-hours ; I dreamed
of fighting with him at night, when he would sud-
denly expand into a giant twelve feet high, and
then as suddenly shrink into a pygmy so small -
that I could not hit him. Jn this latter shape he
would get into my hair, or pop into my waistcoat-
pocket, treating me with as little ceremony as the
Lilliputians showed Captain Lemuel Gulliver — all
of which was not pleasant, to be sure. On the
whole, Conway was a cloud.

And then I had a cloud at home. It was not
Grandfather Nutter, nor Miss Abigail, nor Kitty
Collins, though they all helped to compose it. It
was a vague, funereal, impalpable something which
no amount of gymnastic training would enable me
to knock over. It was Sunday. If ever I havea
boy to bring up in the way he should go, I intend
to make Sunday a cheerful day to him. Sunday
was zot a cheerful day at the Nutter House. You
shall judge for yourself.

It is Sunday morning. I should premise by say-
ing that the deep gloom which has settled over
everything set in like a heavy fog early on Satur-
day evening.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 67

At seven o’clock my grandfather comes smile-
lessly down stairs. He is dressed in black, and
looks as if he had lost all his friends during the
night. Miss Abigail, also in black, looks as if she
were prepared to bury them, and not indiposed to

enjoy the ceremony. Even Kitty Collins has _

caught the contagious gloom, as I perceive when
she brings in the coffee-urn — a solemn and sculp-
turesque urn at any time, but monumental now —
and sets it down in front of Miss Abigail. Miss
Abigail gazes at the urn as if it held the ashes of
her ancestors, instead of a generous quantity of fine
old Java coffee. The meal progresses in silence.
Our parlor is by no means thrown open every
day. It is open this
June morning, and is
pervaded by a strong
smell of centre-table.
The furniture of the
room, and” the little
China ornaments on
the mantel-piece, have
a constrained, unfamil-
liar look. My grand-
father sits in a ma-
hogany chair, reading
a large Bible covered
with green baize. Miss Crushed
Abigail occupies one end of the sofa, and has her
hands crossed stiffly inherlap. I sit in the corner,



i
B
68 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

crushed. Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas are in
close confinement. Baron Trenck, who managed
to escape from the fortress of Glatz, can’t for the
life of him get out of our sitting-room closet. Even
the Rivermouth Barnacle is suppressed until Mon-
day. Genial converse, harmless books, smiles,
lightsome hearts, all are banished. If I want to
read anything, I can read Baxter’s Saints’ Rest.
I would die first. So I sit there kicking my heels,
thinking about New Orleans, and watching a mor-
bid blue-bottle fly that attempts to commit suicide
by butting his head against the window-pane.
Listen !— no, yes —it is —it is the robins singing
in the garden — the grateful, joyous robins sing-
ing away like mad, just as if it were not Sunday.
Their audacity tickles me.

My grandfather looks up, and inquires in a
-sepulchral voice if I am ready for Sabbath-school.
It is time to go. I like the Sabbath-school; there
are bright young faces ¢here, at all events. When
I get out into the sunshine alone, I draw a long
breath; I would turn a somersault up against
Neighbor Penhallow’s newly painted fence if I had
not my best trousers on, so glad am I to escape
from the oppressive atmosphere of the Nutter
House.

Sabbath-school over, I go to meeting, joining
my grandfather, who does not appear to be any
relation to me this day, and Miss Abigail, in the
porch. Our minister holds out very little hope to
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 69

any of us of being saved. Convinced that I am a
lost creature, in common with the human family,
I return home behind my guardians at a snail’s
pace. We have a dead-cold dinner. I saw it laid
out yesterday.

There is a long interval between this repast and
the second service, and a still longer interval be-
tween the beginning and the end of that service ;.
for the Rev. Wibird Hawkins’s sermons are none
of the shortest, whatever else they may be.

After meeting, my grandfather and I take a
walk. We visit, appropriately enough, a neighbor-
ing graveyard. I am by this time in a condition
of mind to become a willing inmate of the place.
The usual evening prayer-meeting is postponed for
some reason. At half past eight I go to bed.

This is the way Sunday was observed in the
Nutter House, and pretty generally throughout
the town, twenty years ago. People who were
prosperous and natural and happy on Saturday
became the most rueful of human beings in the
brief space of twelve hours. I do not think there
was any hypocrisy in this. It was merely the old
Puritan austerity cropping out once aweek. Many
of these people were pure Christians every day in
the seven—excepting the seventh. Then they
were decorous and solemn to the verge of morose-
ness. I should not like to be misunderstood on
this point. Sunday is a blessed day, and there-
fore it should not be made a gloomy one. It is
70 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the Lord’s day, and I do believe that cheerful
hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.

“O day of rest? How beautiful, how fair,
How welcome to the weary and the old!
Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly cares!
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be!
Ah, why will man by his austerities
Shut out the blessed sunshine and the light,
And make of thee a dungeon of despair!”
CHAPTER VII
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT

Two months had elapsed since my arrival at
Rivermouth, when the approach of an important
celebration produced the greatest excitement
among the juvenile population of the town.

There was very little hard study done in the
Temple Grammar School the week preceding the
Fourth of July. For my part, my heart and brain
were so full of fire-crackers, Roman-candles, rock-
ets, pin-wheels, squibs, and gunpowder in various
seductive forms, that I wonder I did not explode
under Mr. Grimshaw’s very nose. I could not do
a sum to save me; I could not tell, for love or
money, whether Tallahassee was the capital of
Tennessee or of Florida; the present and the plu-
perfect tenses were inextricably mixed in my
memory, and I did not know a verb from an ad-
jective when I met one. This was not alone my
condition, but that of every boy in the school.

Mr. Grimshaw considerately made allowances
for our temporary distraction, and sought to fix
our interest on the lessons by connecting them di-
rectly or indirectly with the coming Event. The
class in arithmetic, for instance, was requested to
72 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

state how many boxes of fire-crackers, each box
measuring sixteen inches square, could be stored
in a room of such and such dimensions. He gave
us the Declaration of Independence for a parsing
exercise, and in geography confined his questions
almost exclusively to localities rendered famous in
the Revolutionary War. “What did the people
of Boston do with the tea on board the English
vessels ?” asked our wily instructor. |

“ Threw it into the river!” shrieked the smaller
boys, with an impetuosity that made Mr. Grim-
shaw smile in spite of himself. One luckless ur-
chin said, “ Chucked it,” for which happy expres-
sion he was kept in at recess.

Notwithstanding these clever stratagems, there
was not much solid work done by anybody. The
trail of the serpent (an inexpensive but dangerous
fire-toy) was over us all. We went round deformed
by quantities of Chinese crackers artlessly con-
cealed in our trousers-pockets ; and if a boy whipped
out his handkerchief without proper precaution,
he was sure to let off two or three torpedoes.

Even Mr. Grimshaw was made a sort of acces-
sory to the universal demoralization. In calling
the school to order, he always rapped on the table
_ with a heavy ruler. Under the green baize table-
cloth, on the exact spot where he usually struck, a
certain boy, whose name I withhold, placed a fat
torpedo. The result was a loud explosion, which
caused Mr. Grimshaw to look queer. Charley
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 73

Marden was at the water-pail, at the time, and
directed general attention to himself by strangling
for several seconds and then squirting a slender
thread of water over the blackboard.

Mr. Grimshaw fixed his eyes reproachfully on
Charley, but said no-
thing. The real cul-
prit (it was not Charley
Marden, but the boy
whose name I with-
hold) instantly regret-
ted his badness, and
after school confessed
the whole thing to Mr.
Grimshaw, who heaped
coals of fire upon the
nameless boy’s head by
giving him five cents for
the Fourth of July. If
Mr. Grimshaw had caned this unknown youth, the
punishment would not have been half so severe.

On the last day of June the Captain received a
letter from my father, inclosing five. dollars “for
my son Tom,” which enabled that young gentle-
man to make regal preparations for the celebration
of our national independence. A portion-of this
money, two dollars, I hastened to invest in fire-
works; the balance I put by for contingencies.
In placing the fund in my possession, the Captain
imposed one condition that dampened my ardor



Mr. Grimshaw looked Quecr
74 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

considerably —I was to buy no gunpowder. I
might have all the snapping-crackers and -torpe-
does I wanted; but gunpowder was out of the
question,

I thought this rather hard, for all my young
friends were provided with pistols of various sizes.
Pepper Whitcomb had a horse-pistol nearly as
large as himself, and Jack Harris, though he, to
be sure, was a big boy, was going to have a real
old-fashioned flint-lock musket. However, I did
not mean to let this drawback destroy my happi-
ness. I had one charge of powder stowed away
in the little brass pistol which I brought from
New Orleans, and was bound to make a noise in
the world once, if I never did again.

It was a custom observed from time immemo-
rial for the towns-boys to have a bonfire on the
Square on the midnight before the Fourth. I did
not ask the Captain’s leave to attend this cere-
mony, for I had a general idea that he would not
give it. If the Captain, I reasoned, does not forbid
me, I break no orders by going. Now this was a
specious line of argument, and the mishaps that
befell me in consequence of adopting it were richly
deserved.

On the evening of the third I retired to bed very
early, in order to disarm suspicion. I did not
sleep a wink, waiting for eleven o’clock to come
round ; and I thought it never would come round,
as I lay counting from time to time the slow
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 75

strokes of the ponderous bell in the steeple of the
Old North Church. At length the laggard hour
arrived. While the clock was striking I jumped
out of bed and began dressing.

My grandfather and Miss Abigail were heavy
sleepers, and I might have stolen downstairs and
out at the front door undetected ; but such a com-
monplace proceeding did not suit my adventurous
disposition. I fastened one end of a rope (it was
a few yards cut from Kitty Collins’s clothes-line)
to the bedpost nearest the window, and cautiously
climbed out on the wide pediment over the hall
door. I had neglected to knot the rope; the re-
sult was, that, the moment I swung clear of the
pediment, I descended like a flash of lightning,
and warmed both my hands smartly. The rope,
moreover, was four or five feet too short; so I got
a fall that would have proved serious had I not
tumbled into the middle of one of the big rose-
bushes growing on either side of the steps.

I scrambled out of that without delay, and was
congratulating myself on my good luck, when I
saw by the light of the setting moon the form of
aman leaning over the garden gate. It was one
of the town watch, who had probably been ob-
serving my operations with curiosity. Seeing no
chance of escape, I put a bold face on the matter
and walked directly up to him.

“What on airth air you a-doin’?” asked the
man, grasping the collar of my jacket.
76 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

“T live here, sir, if you please,” I replied, “and
am going to the bonfire. I did n’t want to wake
up the old folks, that’s all.”

The man cocked his eye at me in the most
amiable manner, and released his hold.

“Boys is boys,’ he muttered. He did not
attempt to stop meas I slipped through the gate.

Once beyond his clutches, I took to my heels
and soon reached the Square, where I found forty
or fifty fellows assembled, engaged in building a
pyramid of tar-barrels. The palms of my hands
still tingled so that I could not join in the sport.
I stood in the doorway of the Nautilus Bank,
watching the workers, among whom I recognized
lots of my schoolmates, They looked like a legion
of imps, coming and going in the twilight, busy in
raising some infernal edifice. What a Babel of
voices it was, everybody directing everybody else,
and everybody doing everything wrong !

When all was prepared, some one applied a
match to the sombre pile. A fiery tongue thrust
itself out here and there, then suddenly the whole
fabric burst into flames, blazing and crackling
beautifully. This was a signal for the boys to
join hands and dance around the burning barrels,
which they did, shouting like mad _ creatures.
When the fire had burnt down a little, fresh staves
were brought and heaped on the pyre. In the
excitement of the moment I forgot my tingling
palms, and found myself in the thick of the ca-
rousal.
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 77

Before we were half ready, our combustible
material was expended, and a disheartening kind
of darkness settled down upon us. The boys col-
lected together here and there in knots, consulting
as to what should be done. It yet lacked four or
five hours of daybreak, and none of us were in the
humor to return to bed. I approached one of the
groups standing near the town-pump, and discov-
ered in the uncertain light of the dying brands the
figures of Jack Harris, Phil Adams, Harry Blake,
and Pepper Whitcomb, their faces streaked with
perspiration and tar, and their whole appearance
suggestive of New Zealand chiefs.

“Hullo! here’s Tom Bailey!” shouted Pepper
Whitcomb; “he’ll join in!”

Of course he would. The sting had gone out
of my hands, and I was ripe for anything — none
the less ripe for not knowing what was on the
tapis. After whispering together for a moment,
the boys motioned me to follow them.

We glided out from the crowd and silently
wended our way through a neighboring alley, at
the head of which stood a tumble-down old barn,
owned by one Ezra Wingate. In former days this
was the stable of the mail-coach that ran between
Rivermouth and Boston. When the railroad super-
seded that primitive mode of travel, the lumbering
vehicle was rolled into the barn, and there it stayed.
The stage-driver, after prophesying the immediate
downfall of the nation, died of grief and apoplexy,
78 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

and the old coach followed in his wake as fast as
it could by quietly dropping to pieces. The barn
had the reputation of being haunted, and I think
we all kept very close together when we found
ourselves standing in the black shadow cast by
the tall gable. Here, in a low voice, Jack Harris
laid bare his plan, which was to burn the ancient
stage-coach.

“The old trundle-cart isn’t worth twenty-five
cents,” said Jack Harris, “and Ezra Wingate ought
to thank us for getting the rubbish out of the
way. But if any fellow here does n’t want to have
a hand in it, let him cut and run, and keep a quiet
tongue in his head ever after.”

With this he pulled out the staples that held the
rusty padlock, and the big barn door swung slowly
open. The interior of the stable was pitch-dark,
of course. As we made a movement to enter, a
sudden scrambling, and the sound of heavy bodies
leaping in all directions, caused us to start back in
terror.

“Rats!” cried Phil Adams.

“ Bats!”’ exclaimed Harry Blake.

“Cats!” suggested Jack Harris. ‘“Who’s
afraid?”

Well, the truth is, we were all afraid; and if the
pole of the stage had not been lying close to the
threshold, I do not believe anything on earth would
have induced us to cross it. We seized hold of
the pole-straps and succeeded with great trouble
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 79

in dragging the coach out. The two fore wheels
had rusted to the axle-tree, and refused to revolve.
It was the merest skeleton of a coach. The cush-
ions had long since been removed, and the leather
hangings, where they had not crumbled away, dan-
gled in shreds from the worm-eaten frame. A load
of ghosts and a span of phantom horses to drag
them would have made the ghastly thing complete.

Luckily for our undertaking, the stable stood at
the top of a very steep hill. With three boys to
push behind, and two in front to steer, we started
the old coach on its last trip with little or no diffi-
culty. Our speed increased every moment, and,
the fore wheels becoming unlocked as we arrived
at the foot of the declivity, we charged upon the
crowd like a regiment of cavalry, scattering the
people right and left. Before reaching the bonfire,
to which some one had added several bushels of
shavings, Jack Harris and Phil Adams, who were
steering, dropped on the ground, and allowed the
vehicle to pass over them, which it did without
injuring them; but the boys who were clinging for
dear life to the trunk-rack behind fell over the
prostrate steersmen, and there we all lay in a heap,
two or three of us quite picturesque with the nose-
bleed.

The coach, with an intuitive perception of what
was expected of it, plunged into the centre of
the kindling shavings, and stopped. The flames
sprung up and clung to the rotten woodwork, which
80 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

burned like tinder. At this moment a figure was
seen leaping wildly from the inside of the blazing
coach. The figure made three bounds towards us,
and tripped over Harry Blake. It was Pepper
Whitcomb, with his hair somewhat singed, and
his eyebrows completely scorched off !

Pepper had slyly ensconced himself on the back
seat before we started, intending to have a neat
little ride down hill, and a laugh at us afterwards.
But the laugh, as it happened, was on our side, or
would have been, if half a dozen watchmen had
not suddenly pounced down upon us, as we lay
scrambling on the ground, weak with mirth over
Pepper’s misfortune. We were collared and
marched off before we well knew what had hap-
pened.

The abrupt transition from the noise and light
of the Square to the silent, gloomy brick room in
the rear.rf the Meat Market seemed like the work
of enchantment. We stared at each other aghast.

“ Well,” remarked Jack Harris, witha sickly smile,
“this zs a go!”

“No go, I should say,” whimpered Harry Blake,
glancing at the bare brick walls and the heavy
iron-plated door.

“Never say die,” muttered Phil Adams, dolefully.

The bridewell was a small low-studded chamber
built up against the rear end of the Meat Market,
and approached from the Square by a narrow pas-
sageway. A portion of the room was partitioned


The Interrupted Celebration
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 83

off into eight cells, numbered, each capable of hold-
ing two persons. The cells were full at the time,
as we presently discovered by seeing séveral hid-
eous faces leering out at us through the gratings
of the doors.

A smoky oil-lamp in a lantern suspended from
the ceiling threw a flickering light over the apart-
ment, which contained no furniture excepting a
couple of stout wooden benches. It was a dismal
place by night, and only little less dismal by day,
for the tall houses surrounding “the lock-up” pre-
vented the faintest ray of sunshine from penetrat-
ing the ventilator over the door —a long narrow
window opening inward and propped up by a piece
of lath.

As we seated ourselves in a row on one of the
benches, I imagine that our aspect was anything
but cheerful. Adams and Harris looked very anx-
ious, and Harry Blake, whose nose had just stopped
bleeding, was mournfully carving his name, by sheer
force of habit, on the prison bench. I do not think
I ever saw a more “wrecked” expression on any
human countenance than Pepper Whitcomb’s pre-
sented. His look of natural astonishment at find-
ing himself incarcerated in a jail was considerably
heightened by his lack of eyebrows.

As for me, it was only by thinking how the late
Baron Trenck would have conducted himself under
similar circumstances that I was able to restrain
my tears.
84 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

None of us were inclined to conversation. A
deep silence, broken now and then by a startling
snore from the cells, reigned throughout the cham-
ber. By and by Pepper Whitcomb glanced ner-
vously towards Phil Adams and said, “ Phil, do you
think they will — hang us ?”

“Hang your grandmother!’ returned Adams,
impatiently ; “what I’m afraid of is that they ’ll
keep us locked up until the Fourth is over.”

“You ain't smart ef they do!” cried a voice
from one of the cells. It was a deep bass voice
that sent a chill through me.

“Who are you?” said Jack Harris, addressing
the cells in general; for the echoing qualities of
the room made it difficult to locate the voice.

“That don’t matter,” replied the speaker, put-
ting his face close up to the gratings of No. 3,
“but ef I was a youngster like you, free an’ easy
outside there, this spot would n’t hold me long.”

“That ’s so!’ chimed several of the prison-
birds, wagging their heads behind the iron lat-
tices.

“Hush!” whispered Jack Harris, rising from
his seat and walking on tip-toe to the door of cell
No. 3. “What would you do?”

“Do? Why, I’d pile them ’ere benches up agin
that ’ere door, an’ crawl out of that ’ere winder in
no time. That’s my adwice.”

“And werry good adwice it is, Jim,” said the
occupant of No. 5 approvingly.
ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT 85

Jack Harris seemed to be of the same opinion,
for he hastily placed the benches one on the top
of another under the ventilator, and, climbing up
on the highest bench,
peeped out into the
passageway.

“Tf any gent hap-
pens to have a nine-
pence about him,” said
the man in cell No.
3, “there ’s a sufferin’
family here as could
make useof it. Small-
est favors gratefully
received, an’ no ques-
tions axed.”

This appeal touched
a new silver quarter
of a dollar in my trou-
sers-pocket; I fished
out the coin from a
mass of fireworks, and
gave it to the prisoner.
He appeared to be so good-natured a fellow that
I ventured to ask what he had done to get into
jail. .

‘“Intirely innocent. I was clapped in here by a
rascally nevew as wishes to enjoy my wealth afore
I’m dead.”

“Your name, sir?” I inquired, with a view of































































“ What would you do?”
86 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

reporting the outrage to my grandfather and _ hav-
ing the injured person reinstated in society.

“Git out, you insolent young reptyle!” shouted
the man, in a passion.

I retreated precipitately, amid a roar of laughter
from the other cells.

“Can’t you keep still?” exclaimed Harris, with-
drawing his head from the window.

A portly watchman usually sat on a stool out-
side the door day and night; but on this particular
occasion, his services being required elsewhere,
the bridewell had been left to guard itself.

“ All clear,” whispered Jack Harris, as he van-
ished through the aperture and dropped softly on
the ground outside. We all followed him expe-
ditiously — Pepper Whitcomb and myself getting
stuck in the window for a moment in our frantic
efforts not to be last.

“Now, boys, everybody for himself!”
CHAPTER VIII
THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH

THE sun cast a broad column of quivering gold
across the river at the foot of our street, just as I
reached the doorstep of the Nutter House. Kitty
Collins, with her dress tucked about her so that
she looked as if she had on a pair of calico trou-
sers, was washing off the sidewalk.

“ Arrah, you bad boy!” cried Kitty, leaning on
the mop-handle, “the Capen has jist been askin’
for you. He’s gone up town, now. It’s a nate
thing you done with my clothes-line, and it’s me
you may thank for gettin’ it out of the way before
the Capen come down.”

The kind creature had hauled in the rope, and
my escapade had not been discovered by the fam-
ily ; but I knew very well that the burning of the
stage-coach, and the arrest of the boys concerned
in the mischief, were sure to reach my grandfather’s
ears sooner or later.

“Well, Thomas,” said the old gentleman, an hour
or so afterwards, beaming upon me benevolently
across the breakfast-table, “you did n’t wait to be
called this morning.”

“No, sir,’ I replied, growing very warm, “I
88 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

took a little run up town to see what was going
on.”

I did not say anything about the little run I took
. home again !

“ They had quite a time on the Square last night,”
remarked Captain Nutter, looking up from the
Rivermouth Barnacle, which was always placed be-
side his coffee-cup at breakfast.

I felt that my hair was preparing to stand on end.

“Quite a time,” continued my grandfather.
“Some boys broke into Ezra Wingate’s barn and
carried off the old stage-coach. The young ras-
cals! I do believe they ’d burn up the whole town
if they had their way.”

With this he resumed the paper. After a long
silence he exclaimed, “ Hullo!’?— upon which I
nearly fell off the chair.

“« Miscreants unknown,” read my grandfather,
following the paragraph
with his forefinger ; “‘es-
caped from the bridewell,
leaving no clew to their
identity, except the letter
H, cut on one of the
benches.’ ‘Five dollars

& Miscreants unknown” reward offered for the ap-
prehension of the perpe-
trators.. Sho! I hope Wingate will catch them.”

I do not see how I continued to live, for on hear-
ing this the breath went entirely out of my body.

”


THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH 89

I beat a retreat from the room as soon as I could,
and flew to the stable with a misty intention of
mounting Gypsy and escaping from the place. I
was pondering what steps to take, when Jack Har-
ris and Charley Marden entered the yard.

“T say,” said Harris as blithe as a lark, “has
old Wingate been here?”

“ Been here?” I cried, “I should hope not!”

“ The whole thing’s out, you know,” said Harris,
pulling Gypsy’s forelock over her eyes and blowing
playfully into her nostrils.

“You don’t mean it!” I gasped.

“Yes, I do, and we are to pay Wingate three
dollars apiece. He’ll make rather a good spec out
of it.”

“But how did he discover that we were the —
the miscreants?” I asked, quoting mechanically
from the Rivermouth Barnacle.

“Why, he saw us take the old ark, confound
him! He’s been trying to sell it any time these
ten years. Now he has sold it tous. When he
found that we had slipped out of the Meat Market,
he went right off and wrote the advertisement
offering five dollars reward ; though he knew well
enough who had taken the coach, for he came
round to my father’s house before the paper was
printed to talk the matterover. Wasn't the gov-
ernor mad, though! But it’s all settled, I tell you.
We’re to pay Wingate fifteen dollars for the old
go-cart, which he wanted to sell the other day for
go THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

seventy-five cents, and could n’t. It’s a down-
right swindle. But the funny part of it is to come.”

“Oh, there’s a funny part to it, is there?” I
remarked bitterly.

“Yes. The moment Bill Conway saw the adver-
tisement, he knew it was Harry Blake who cut that
letter H on the bench; so off he rushes up to Win-
gate — kind of him, wasn’t it ?>— and claims the
reward. ‘Too late, young man,’ says old Wingate,
‘the culprits has been discovered.’ You see Sly-
boots had n’t any intention of paying that five dol-
lars.”

Jack Harris’s statement lifted a weight from
my bosom, The article in the Rivermouth Barna-
cle had placed the affair before me in a new light.
I had thoughtlessly committed a grave offense.
Though the property in question was valueless, we
were clearly wrong in destroying it. At the same
time, Mr. Wingate had tacitly sanctioned the act
by not preventing it when he might easily have done
so. He had-allowed his property to be destroyed
in order that he might realize a large profit.

Without waiting to hear more, I went straight
to Captain Nutter, and, laying my remaining three
dollars on his knee, confessed my share in the pre-
vious night’s transaction.

The Captain heard me through in profound silence,
pocketed the bank-notes, and walked off without
speaking a word. He had punished me in his own
whimsical fashion at the breakfast-table, for, at the
THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH gI

very moment he was harrowing up my soul by read-
ing the extracts from the Rivermouth Barnacle, he
not only knew all about the bonfire, but had paid
Ezra Wingate his three dollars. Such was the du-
plicity of that aged impostor !

I think Captain Nutter was justified in retaining
my pocket-money, as additional punishment, though
the possession of it later in the day would have got
me out of a difficult position, as the reader will see
farther on.

’ I returned with a light heart anda large piece of
punk to my friends in the stable-yard, where we cele-
brated the termination of our trouble by setting off
two packs of fire-crackers in an empty wine-cask.
They madea prodigious racket, but failed somehow
to fully express my feelings. The little brass pistol
in my bedroom suddenly occurred to me. It had
been loaded I do not know how many months, long
before I left New Orleans, and now was the time,
if ever, to fire it off. Muskets, blunderbusses, and
pistols were banging away lively all over town,
and the smell of gunpowder, floating on the air, set
me wild to add something respectable to the uni-
versal din.

When the pistol was produced, Jack Harris ex-
amined the rusty cap and prophesied that it would
not explode.

“ Never mind,” said I, “let’s try it.”

I had fired the pistol once, secretly, in New Or.
leans, and, remembering the noise it gave birth to
92 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

on that occasion, I shut both eyes tight as I pulled
the trigger. The hammer clicked on the cap with
a dull, dead sound. Then Harris tried it; then
Charley Marden; then I took it again, and after
three or four trials was on the point of giving it







“ Are you hurt?”

up as a bad job, when the obstinate thing went off
with a tremendous explosion, nearly jerking my arm
from the socket. The smoke cleared away, and
there I stood with the stock of the pistol clutched
convulsively in my hand — the barrel, lock, trigger,
and ramrod having vanished into thin air.

“Are you hurt?” cried the boys in one breath.
THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH 93

“ N—no,” I replied, dubiously, for the concussion
had bewildered me a little.

When I realized the nature of the calamity, my
grief was excessive. I cannot imagine what led
me to do so ridiculous a thing, but I gravely bur-
ied the remains of my beloved pistol in our back
garden, and erected over the mound a slate tablet
to the effect that “Mr. Barker, formerly of New
Orleans, was Killed accidently on the Fourth of
july, 18— in the 2d year of his Age.”? Binny
Wallace, arriving on the spot just after the disaster,
and Charley Marden (who enjoyed the obsequies
immensely), acted with me as chief mourners. I,
for my part, was a very sincere one.

As I turned away in a disconsolate mood from
the garden, Charley Marden remarked that he
should not be surprised if the pistol-but took root
and grew into a mahogany-tree or something. He
said he once planted an old musket-stock, and
shortly afterwards a lot of shoots sprungup! Jack
Harris laughed; but neither I nor Binny Wallace
saw Charley’s wicked joke.

We were now joined by Pepper Whitcomb, Fred
Langdon, and several other desperate characters,
on their way to the Square, which was always a
busy place when public festivities were going on.
Feeling that I was still in disgrace with the Cap-

1 This inscription is copied from a triangular-shaped piece of
slate, still preserved in the garret of the Nutter House, together

with the pistol-but itself, which was subsequently dug up for a fost
mortem examination.
94 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

tain, I thought it politic to ask his consent before
accompanying the boys.

He gave it with some hesitation, advising me
to be careful not to get in front of the firearms.
Once he put his fingers mechanically into his vest-
pocket and half drew forth some dollar-bills, then
slowly thrust them back again as his sense of justice
overcame his genial disposition. I guess it cut the
old gentleman to the heart to be obliged to keep
me out of my pocket-money. I know it did me.
However, as I was passing through the hall, Miss
Abigail, with a very severe cast of countenance,
slipped a brand-new quarter into my hand. We
had silver currency in those days, thank Heaven!

Great were the bustle and confusion on the
Square. By the way, I don’t know why they
called this large open space a square, unless be-
cause it was an oval —an oval formed by the con-
fluence of half a dozen streets, now thronged by
crowds of smartly dressed towns-people and coun-
try folks ; for Rivermouth on the Fourth was the
centre of attraction to the inhabitants of the
neighboring villages.

On one side of the Square were twenty or thirty
booths arranged in a semicircle, gay with little
flags and seductive with lemonade, ginger-beer,
and seed cakes. Here and there were tables at
which could be purchased the smaller sort of fire-

works, such as pin-wheels, serpents, double-head-
ers, and punk warranted not to go out. Many of
THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH 95

the adjacent houses made a pretty display of bunt-
ing, and across each of the streets opening on the
Square was an arch of spruce and evergreen, blos-
soming all over with patriotic mottoes and paper
roses.

It was a noisy, merry, bewildering scene as we
came upon the ground. The incessant rattle of
small arms, the booming of the twelve-pounder
firing on the Mill Dam, and the silvery clangor of
the church-bells ringing simultaneously — not to
mention an ambitious brass-band that was blow-
ing itself to pieces on a balcony — were enough to
drive one distracted. We amused ourselves for an
hour or two, darting in and out among the crowd
and setting off our crackers. At one o’clock the
Hon. Hezekiah Elkins mounted a platform in the
middle of the Square and delivered an oration, to
which his “ feller-citizens” did not pay much atten-
tion, having all they could do to dodge the squibs
that were set loose upon them by mischievous boys
stationed on the surrounding ‘housetops.

Our little party, which had picked up recruits
here and there, not being swayed by eloquence,
withdrew to a booth on the outskirts of the crowd,
where we regaled ourselves with root beer at two
cents a glass. I recollect being much struck by
the placard surmounting this tent:

Root BEER
SoLp HERE,
It seemed to me the perfection of pith and poetry.
96 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

What could be more terse? Not a word to spare,
and yet everything fully expressed. Rhyme and
rhythm faultless. It was a delightful poet who
made those verses. As for the beer itself — that,
I think, must have made from the root of all evil!
A single glass of it
insured an uninter-
rupted pain for twen-
ty-four hours.

The influence of
my liberality working
on Charley Marden
— for it was I who
paid for the beer —
he presently invited
us all to take an ice-cream with him at Pettingil’s
saloon. Pettingil was the Delmonico of River-
mouth. He furnished ices and confectionery for
aristocratic balls and parties, and did not disdain
to officiate as leader of the orchestra at the same;
for Pettingil played on the violin, as Pepper Whit-
’ comb described it, “like Old Scratch.”

Pettingil’s confectionery store was on the cor-
ner of Willow and High streets. The saloon, sep-
arated from the shop by a flight of three steps
leading to a door hung with faded red drapery,
had about it an air of mystery and seclusion quite
delightful. Four windows, also draped, faced the
side-street, affording an unobstructed view of
Marm Hatch’s back yard, where a number of inex-



The Perfection of Pith and Poetry
THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH 97

plicable garments on a clothes-line were always to
be seen careering in the wind.

There was a lull just then in the ice-cream busi-
ness, it being dinner-time, and we found the sa-
loon unoccupied. When we had seated ourselves
around the largest marble-topped table, Charley
Marden in a manly voice ordered twelve sixpenny
ice-creams, “strawberry and verneller mixed.”

It was a.magnificent sight, those twelve chilly
glasses entering the room on a waiter, the red and
white custard rising from each. glass like a church-
steeple, and the spoon-handle shooting up from
the apex like a spire. I doubt if a person of the
nicest palate could have distinguished, with his
eyes shut, which was the vanilla and which the
strawberry: but if I could at this moment obtain
a cream tasting as that did, I would give five dol-
lars for a very small quantity.

We fell to with a will, and so evenly balanced
were our capabilities that we finished our creams
together, the spoons clinking in the glasses like
one spoon.

“Let’s have some more!” cried Charley Mar-
den, with the air of Aladdin ordering up a fresh
hogshead of pearls and rubies. “Tom Bailey, tell
Pettingil to send in another round.”

Could I credit my ears? I looked at him to see
if he were in earnest. He meant it. Ina moment
more I was leaning over the counter giving direc-
tions for a second supply. Thinking it would make
98 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

_no difference to such a gorgeous young sybarite as
Marden, I took the liberty of ordering ninepenny
creams this time.

On returning to the saloon, what was my horror
at finding it empty!

There were the twelve cloudy glasses, standing
in a circle on the sticky marble slab, and nota boy
to be seen. A pair of hands letting go their hold
on the window-sill outside explained matters. I
had been made a victim.

I couldn’t stay and face Pettingil, whose pep-
pery temper was well known among the boys. I
had not a cent in the world to appease him. What
should I do? I heard the clink of approaching
glasses —the ninepenny creams. I rushed to the
nearest window. It was only five feet to the
ground. I threw myself out as if I had been an
old hat.

Landing on my feet, I fled breathlessly down
High Street, through Willow, and was turning into
Brierwood Place when the sound of several voices,
calling to me in distress, stopped my progress.

“Look out, you fool! the mine! the mine!”
yelled the warning voices.

Several men and boys were standing at the head
of the street, making insane gestures to me to
avoid something. But I saw no mine, only in the
middle of the road in front of me was a common
flour-barrel, which, as I gazed at it, suddenly rose
into the air witha terrific explosion. I felt myself
THE ADVENTURES OF A FOURTH 99

thrown violently off my feet. I remember nothing
else, excepting that, as I went up, I caught a mo-
mentary glimpse of Ezra Wingate leering through
his shop window like an avenging spirit.

Themine that had wrought me woe was not prop-
erly a mine at all, but merely a few ounces of pow-
der placed under an empty keg or barrel and fired
with a slow-match. Boys who did not happen to



The Result of the Explosion

have pistols or cannon generally burnt their pow-
der in this fashion.

For an account of what followed I am indebted to
hearsay, for I was insensible when the bystanders
picked me up and carried me home on a shutter
borrowed from the proprietor of Pettingil’s saloon.
I was supposed to be killed, but happily (happily
for me at least) I was merely stunned. I lay ina
semi-unconscious state until eight o'clock that
100 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

night, when I attempted to speak. Miss Abigail,
who watched by the bedside, put her ear down to
my lips and was saluted with these remarkable
words :

“ Strawberry and verneller mixed

“Mercy on us! what is the boy saying ?” cried
Miss Abigail.

“ ROOTBEERSOLDHERE !”
CHAPTER IX
I BECOME AN R. M. C,

In the course of ten days I recovered sufficiently
from my injuries to attend school, where, fora little
while, I was looked upon as a hero, on account of
having been blown up. What do we not make a
hero of ? The distraction which prevailed in the
classes the week preceding the Fourth had sub-
sided, and nothing remained to indicate the recent
festivities, excepting a noticeable want of eyebrows
on the part of Pepper Whitcomb and myself.

In August we had two weeks’ vacation. It was
about this time that I became a member of the
Rivermouth Centipedes, a secret society composed
of twelve of the Temple Grammar School boys.
This was an honor to which I had long aspired,
but, being a new boy, I was not admitted to the
fraternity until my character had fully developed
itself.

It was a very select society, the object of which
I never fathomed, though I was an active member
of the body during the remainder of my residence
at Rivermouth, and at one time held the onerous
position of F. C.— First Centipede. Each of the
elect wore a copper cent (some occult association
102 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

being established between a cent apiece and a cen-
tipede!) suspended by a string round his neck.
The medals were worn next the skin, and it was
while bathing one day at Grave Point, with Jack
Harris and Fred Langdon, that I had my curiosity
roused to the highest pitch by a sight of. these
singular emblems. As soon as I ascertained the
existence of a boys’ club, of course I was ready
to die to join it. And eventually I was allowed to
join.

The initiation ceremony took place in Fred Lang-
don’s barn, where I was submitted to a series of
trials not calculated to soothe the nerves of a tim-
orous boy. Before being led to the Grotto of En-
chantment — such was the modest title given to
the loft over my friend’s wood-house — my hands
were securely pinioned, and my eyes covered with
a thick silk handkerchief. At the head of the stairs
I was told in an unrecognizable, husky voice, that
it was not yet too late to retreat if I felt myself
physically too weak to undergo the necessary tor-
tures. I replied that I was not too weak, in a tone
which IJ intended to be resolute, but which, in spite
of me, seemed to come from the pit of my stomach.

“Tt is well!”’ said the husky voice.

I did not feel so sure about that ; but, having
made up my mind to be a Centipede, a Centipede I
was bound to be. Other boys had passed through
the ordeal and lived, why should not I ?

A prolonged silence followed this preliminary ex.
I BECOME AN R. M. C. 103

amination, and I was wondering what would come
next, when a pistol fired off close by my ear deaf-
ened me fora moment. The unknown voice then
directed me to take ten steps forward and stop at
the word halt. I took ten steps, and halted.

“ Stricken mortal,” said a second husky voice,
more husky, if possible, than the first, “if you had
advanced another inch, you would have disap-
peared down an abyss three thousand feet deep!”

I naturally shrunk back at this friendly piece of
information. A prick from some two-pronged in-
strument, evidently a pitchfork, gently checked my
retreat. I was then conducted to the brink of sev-
eral other precipices, and
ordered to step over many
dangerous chasms, where
the result would have been
instant death if I had com-
mitted the least mistake.
I have neglected to say
that my movements were
accompanied by dismal
groans from different parts
of the grotto.

Finally, I was led up a
steep plank to what ap-
peared to me an incalcula-
ble height. Here I stood breathless while the by-
laws were read aloud. A more extraordinary code
of laws never came from the brain of man. The



Gently checked
104 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

penalties attached to the abject being who should
reveal any of the secrets of the society were enough
to make the blood run cold. A second pistol-shot
was heard, the something I stood on sunk with a
crash beneath my feet, and I fell two miles, as
nearly as I could compute it. At the same instant
the handkerchief was whisked from my eyes, and
I found myself standing in an empty hogshead
surrounded by twelve masked figures fantastically
dressed. One of the conspirators was really ap-
palling with a tin sauce-pan on his head, and a
tiger-skin sleigh-robe thrown over his shoulders.
I scarcely need say that there were no vestiges to
be seen of the fearful gulfs over which I had
passed so cautiously. My ascent had been to the
top of the hogshead, and my descent to the bottom
thereof. Holding one another by the hand, and
chanting a low dirge, the Mystic Twelve revolved
about me. This concluded the ceremony. With
a merry shout the boys threw off their masks, and
I was declared a regularly installed member of
the R. M. C.

I afterwards had a good deal of sport out of the
club, for these initiations, as you may imagine, were
sometimes very comical spectacles, especially when
the aspirant for centipedal honors happened to be
of a timid disposition. If he showed the slightest
terror, he was certain to be tricked unmercifully,
One of our subsequent devices —a humble inven-
tion of my own —was to request the blindfolded


The Lnitiation
I BECOME AN R. M. C. . 107

candidate to put out his tongue, whereupon the
First Centipede would say, in a low tone, as if not
intended for the ear of the victim, ‘ Diabolus,
fetch me the red-hot iron!” The expedition with
which that tongue would disappear was simply ridic-
ulous.

Our meetings were held in various barns, at no
stated periods, but as circumstances suggested.
Any member had a right to call a meeting. Each
boy who failed to report himself was fined one cent.
Whenever a member had reasons for thinking that
another member would be unable to attend, he
called a meeting. For instance, immediately on
learning the death of Harry Blake’s great-grand-
father, I issued acall. By these simple and ingen-
ious measures we kept our treasury in a flourish-
ing condition, sometimes having on hand as much
as a dollar and a quarter.

I have said that the society had no especial ob-
ject. It is true, there was a tacit understanding
among us that the Centipedes were to stand by one
another on all occasions, though I don’t remember
that they did; but further than this we had no
purpose, unless it was to accomplish as a body the
same amount of mischief which we were sure to
do as individuals. To mystify the staid and slow-
going Rivermouthians was our frequent pleasure.
Several of our pranks won us such a reputation
among the townsfolk that we were credited with
having a large finger in whatever went amiss in
the place.
108 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

One morning, about a week after my admission
into the secret order, the quiet citizens awoke to
find that the sign-boards of all the principal streets
had changed places during the night. People who
went trustfully to sleep in Currant Square opened
their eyes in Honeysuckle Terrace. Jones’s Av-
enue at the north end had suddenly become Wal-
nut Street, and Peanut Street was nowhere to be
found. Confusion reigned. The town authorities
took the matter in hand without delay, and six of
the Temple Grammar School boys were summoned
to appear before Justice Clapham.

Having tearfully disclaimed to my grandfather
all knowledge of the transaction, I disappeared
from the family circle, and was not apprehended
until late in the afternoon, when the Captain
dragged me ignominiously from the haymow and
conducted me, more dead than alive, to the office
of Justice Clapham. Here I encountered five
other pallid culprits, who had been fished out of
divers coal-bins, garrets, and chicken-coops, to an-
swer the demands of the outraged laws. (Charley
Marden had hidden himself in a pile of gravel be-
hind his father’s house, and looked like a recently
exhumed mummy.)

There was not the least evidence against us;
and indeed we were wholly innocent of the offense.
The trick, as was afterwards proved, had been
played by a party of soldiers stationed at the fort
in the harbor. We were indebted for our arrest
I BECOME AN R. M. C. 109

to Master Conway, who had slyly dropped a hint,
within the hearing of Selectman Mudge, to the
effect that “young Bailey and his five cronies
could tell something about them signs.” When he
was called upon to make good his assertion, he was



Charley Marden exhumed

considerably more terrified than the Centipedes,
though ¢iey were ready to sink into their shoes.
At our next meeting it was unanimously resolved
that Conway’s animosity should not be quietly sub-
mitted to. He had sought to inform against us in
the stage-coach business; he had volunteered to
carry Pettingil’s “little bill” for twenty-four ice-
creams to Charley Marden’s father; and now he
bad caused us to be arraigned before Justice Clap-
IIo THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

ham on a charge equally groundless and painful.
After much noisy discussion a plan of retaliation
was agreed upon.

There was a certain slim, mild apothecary in the
town, by the name of Meeks. It was generally
given out that Mr. Meeks had a vague desire to
get married, but, being a shy and timorous youth,
lacked the moral courage to do so. It was also
well known that the Widow Conway had not
buried her heart with the late lamented. As to
her shyness, that was not so clear. Indeed, her
attentions to Mr. Meeks, whose mother she might
have been, were of a nature not to be misunder-
stood, and were not misunderstood by any one but
Mr. Meeks himself.

The widow carried on a dressmaking establish-
ment at her residence on the corner opposite
Meeks’s drug-store, and kept a wary eye on all
the young ladies from Miss Dorothy Gibbs’s Fe-
male Institute who patronized the shop for soda-
water, acid-drops, and slate-pencils. In the after-
noon the widow was usually seen seated, smartly
dressed, at her window upstairs, casting destruc-
tive glances across the street — the artificial roses
in her cap and her whole languishing manner say-
ing as plainly as a label on a prescription, “To be
Taken Immediately!” But Mr. Meeks did n’t take.

The lady’s fondness and the gentleman’s blind-
ness were topics ably handled at every sewing-cir-
cle in the town. It was through these two luck-
I BECOME AN R. M. C. III

less individuals that we proposed to strike a blow
at the common enemy. To kill less than three
birds with one stone did not suit our sanguinary
purpose. We disliked the widow not so much for
her sentimentality as for being the mother of Bill
Conway; we disliked Mr. Meeks, not because he
was insipid, like his own syrups, but because the
widow loved him; Bill Conway we hated for him-
self.

Late one dark Saturday night in September
we carried our plan into effect. On the following
morning, as the orderly citizens wended their way
to church past the widow’s abode, their sober faces
relaxed at beholding over her front door the well-
known gilt Mortar and Pestle which usually stood
on the top of a pole on the opposite corner; while
the passers on that side of the street were equally
amused and scandalized at seeing a placard bear-
ing the following announcement tacked to the
druggist’s window-shutters :

Winted, a Sempstiess ye

The naughty cleverness of the joke (which I
should be sorry to defend) was recognized at once.
It spread like wildfire over the town, and, though
the mortar and placard were speedily removed, our
triumph was complete. The whole community
was on the broad grin, and our participation in
the affair seemingly unsuspected.

It was those wicked soldiers at the fort !
| CHAPTER X
I FIGHT CONWAY

THERE was one person, however, who cherished
a strong suspicion that the Centipedes had hada
hand in the business; and that person was Con-
way. His red hair seemed to change to a livelier
red, and his sallow cheeks to a deeper sallow, as
we glanced at him stealthily over the tops of our
slates the next day in school. He knew we
were watching him, and made sundry mouths and
scowled in the most threatening way over his
sums.

Conway had an accomplishment peculiarly his
own —that of throwing his thumbs out of joint at
will. Sometimes while absorbed in study, or on
becoming nervous at recitation, he performed the
feat unconsciously. Throughout this entire morn-
ing his thumbs were observed to be in a chronic
state of dislocation, indicating great mental agita-
tion on the part of the owner. We fully expected
an outbreak from him at recess; but the inter-
mission passed off tranquilly, somewhat to our dis-
appointment.

At the close of the afternoon session it hap-
pened that Binny Wallace and myself, having got
I FIGHT CONWAY 113

swamped in our Latin exercise, were detained in
school for the purpose of refreshing our memories
with a page of Mr. Andrews’s perplexing irregular
verbs. Binny Wallace finishing his task first, was
dismissed. I followed shortly after, and, on step-
ping into the playground, saw my little friend
plastered, as it were, up against the fence, and
Conway standing ini front of him ready to deliver
a blow on the upturned, unprotected face, whose
gentleness would have stayed any arm but a cow-
ard’s.

Seth Rodgers, with both hands in his pockets,
was leaning against the pump lazily enjoying the
sport; but on seeing me sweep across the yard,
whirling my strap of books in the air like a sling,
he called out lustily, “Lay low, Conway! here ’s
young Bailey!”

Conway turned just in time to catch on his
shoulder the blow intended for his head. He
reached forward one of his long arms—he had
arms like a windmill, that boy — and, grasping me
by the hair, tore out quite a respectable handful.
The tears flew to my eyes, but they were not the
tears of defeat ; they were merely the involuntary
tribute which nature paid to the departed tresses.

Ina second my little jacket lay on the ground,
and I stood on guard, resting lightly on my right
leg, and keeping my eye fixed steadily on Conway's
— in all of which I was faithfully following the in-
structions of Phil Adams, whose father subscribed
to a sporting journal.
Ii4 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Conway also threw himself into a defensive at-
titude, and there we were, glaring at each other,
motionless, neither of us disposed to risk an attack,
but both on the alert to resist one. There is no
telling how long we might have remained in that
absurd position had we not been interrupted.

It was a custom with the larger pupils to return
to the playground after school, and play base-ball
until sundown. The town authorities had prohib-
ited ball-playing on the Square, and, there being
no other available place, the boys fell back per-
force on the school-yard. Just at this crisis a
dozen or so of the Templars entered the gate, and,
seeing at a glance the belligerent status of Con-
way and myself, dropped bat and ball and rushed
to the spot where we stood.

“Ts it a fight?” asked Phil Adams, who saw by
our freshness that we had not yet got to work.

“Yes, it’s a fight,” I answered, “unless Con-
way will ask Wallace’s pardon, promise never to
hector me in future — and put back my hair!”

This last condition was rather a staggerer.

“JT shan’t do nothing of the sort,” said Con-
way sulkily.

“Then the thing must go on,” said Adams,
with dignity. “Rodgers, as I understand it, is
your second, Conway? Bailey, come here.
What ’s the row about ?”’

“He was thrashing Binny Wallace.”

“No, I wasn’t,” interrupted Conway ; “but I
I FIGHT CONWAY 115

was going to, because he knows who put Meeks’s
mortar over our door. And I know well enough
who did it ; it was that sneaking little mulatter !”
— pointing at me.

“Oh, by George!” I cried, reddening at the in-
sult.

“Cool is the word,” said Adams, as he bound a
handkerchief round my head and carefully tucked
away the long straggling locks that offered a



Preparing for the Battle

tempting advantage to the enemy. ‘ Who ever
heard of a fellow with such a head of hair going
into action!” muttered Phil, twitching the hand-
kerchief to ascertain if it were securely tied. He
then loosened my gallowses (braces), and buckled
them tightly above my hips. ‘“ Now, then, ban-
tam, never say die!”

Conway regarded these business-like prepara-
116 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

tions with evident misgiving, for he called Rod-

gers to his side, and had himself arrayed in a
similar manner, though his hair was cropped so
close that you could not have taken hold of it with
a pair of tweezers.

“Ts your man ready?” asked Phil Adams, ad-
dressing Rodgers.

“Ready!”

“Keep your back to the gate, Tom,” whispered
Phil in my ear, “and you’ll have the sun in his
eyes.”

Behold us once more face to face, like David
and the Philistine. Look at us as long as you
may ; for this is all you shall see of the combat.
According to my thinking, the hospital teaches a
better lesson than the battlefield. I will tell you
about my black eye, and my swollen lip, if you
will; but not a word of the fight.
~ You will get no description of it from me, sim-
ply because I think it would prove very poor read-
ing, and not because I consider my revolt against
Conway’s tyranny unjustifiable.

I had borne Conway’s persecutions for many
months with lamb-like patience. I might have
shielded myself by appealing to Mr. Grimshaw;
but no boy in the Temple Grammar School could
do that without losing caste. Whether this was
just or not does not matter a pin, since it was so—
a traditionary law of the place. The personal in-
convenience I suffered from my tormentor was
I FIGHT CONWAY 117

nothing to the pain he inflicted on me indirectly
by his persistent cruelty to little Binny Wallace.
I should have lacked the spirit of a hen if I had
not resented it finally. I am glad that I faced
Conway, and asked no favors, and got rid of him
forever. I am glad that Phil Adams taught me to
box, and I say to all youngsters: Learn to box, to
ride, to pull an oar, and to swim. The occasion
may come round when a decent proficiency in one
or the rest of these accomplishments will be of
service to you.

In one of the best books! ever written for boys
are these words : —

“Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket
and foot-ball. Not one of you will be the worse,
but very much the better, for learning to box well.
Should you never have to use it in earnest, there ’s
no exercise in the world so good for the temper,
and for the muscles of the back and legs. :

“ As for fighting, keep out of it, if you can, by
all means. When the time comes, if ever it should,
that you have to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to a challenge
to fight, say ‘No’ if you can— only take care you
make it plain to yourself why you say ‘No.’ It’s
a proof of the highest courage, if done from true
Christian motives. It’s quite right and justifiable
if done from a simple aversion to physical pain
and danger. But don’t say ‘No’ because you fear
a licking and say or think it’s because you fear

1 ZJom Brown's School Days at Rugby.
118 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

God, for that’s neither Christian nor honest. And
if you do fight, fight it out; and don’t give in
while you can stand and see.”

And don’t give in while you can’t! say I. For
I could stand very little, and see not at all (having
pummeled the school-pump for the last twenty
seconds), when Conway retired from the field. As
Phil Adams stepped up to shake hands with me,
he received a telling blow in the stomach; for all
the fight was not out of me yet, and I mistook him
for a new adversary.

Convinced of my error, I accepted his congratu-
lations, with those of the other boys, blandly and
blindly. I remember that Binny Wallace wanted
to give me his silver
pencil - case. The
gentle soul had stood
’ throughout the con-
test with his face
turned to the fence,
suffering untold ag-
ony.

A good wash at the
pump, and a cold key
applied to my eye, re-
freshed meamazingly-
Escorted by two or three of the schoolfellows, I
walked home through the pleasant autumn twi-
light, battered but triumphant. As I went along,
my cap cocked on one side to keep the chilly air



Phil Adams shaking Hands
I FIGHT CONWAY 119g

from my eye, I felt that I was not only following
my nose, but following it so closely, that I was in
some danger of treading on it,
I seemed to have nose enough
for the whole party. My left
cheek, also, was puffed out like
a dumpling. I could not help
saying to myself, “If chzs is
victory, how about that other
fellow?”

“Tom,” said Harry Blake,
hesitating.

“Well?”

“Did you see Mr. Grimshaw looking out of the
recitation-room window just as we left the yard?”

“No; was he, though ?”

“‘T am sure of it.”

“Then he must have seen all the row.”

“ Should n’t wonder.”

“No, he didn’t,” broke in Adams, “or he would
have stopped it short metre; but I guess he saw
you pitching into the pump — which you did un-
commonly strong —and of course he smelt mis-
chief directly. ”

«Well, it can’t be helped now,” I reflected.

““__ As the monkey said when he fell out of the
cocoanut tree,’ added Charley Marden, trying to
make me laugh.

It was early candle-light when we reached the
house. Miss Abigail, opening the front door,



Afterwards
120 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

started back at my hilarious appearance. I tried
to smile upon her sweetly, but the smile rippling
over my swollen cheek, and dying away like a
. spent wave on my nose, produced an expression of
which Miss Abigail declared she had never seen
the like excepting on the face of a Chinese idol.

She hustled me unceremoniously into the pres-
ence of my grandfather in the sitting-room. Cap-

_tain Nutter, as the recognized professional warrior
of our family, could not consistently take me to
task for fighting Conway ; nor was he disposed to
do so; for the Captain was well aware of the long-
continued provocation I had endured.

“ Ah, you rascal!” cried the old gentleman, af-
ter hearing my story, “just like me when I was
young — always in one kind of trouble or another.
I believe it runs in the family.”

“T think,” said Miss Abigail, without the faint-
est expression on her countenance, “ that a table-
spoonful of hot-dro—”

The Captain interrupted Miss Abigail peremp-
torily, directing her to make a shade out of card-
board and black silk, to tie over my eye. Miss
Abigail must have been possessed with the idea
that I had taken up pugilism as a profession, for
she turned out no fewer than six of these blinders.

“They ’ll be handy to have in the house,” said
Miss Abigail grimly.

Of course, so great a breach of discipline was
not to be passed over by Mr. Grimshaw. He had,
I FIGHT CONWAY 121

as we suspected, witnessed the closing scene of the
fight from the schoolroom window, and the next
morning, after prayers, I was not wholly unpre-
pared when Master Conway and myself were called
up to the desk for examination. Conway, with a
piece of court-plaster in the shape of a Maltese
cross on his right cheek, and I with the silk patch
over my left eye, caused a general titter through
the room.

“Silence!” said Mr. Grimshaw sharply.

As the reader is already familiar with the lead-
ing points in the case of Bailey versus Conway, I
shall not report the trial further than to say that
Adams, Marden, and several other pupils testified
to the fact that Conway had imposed on me ever
since my first day at the Temple School. Their
evidence also went to show that Conway was a
quarrelsome character generally. Bad for Conway.
Seth Rodgers, on the part of his friend, proved
that I-had struck the first blow. That was bad for
me.

“Tf you please, sir,” said Binny Wallace, hold-
ing up his hand for permission to speak, “ Bailey
did n’t fight on his own account; he fought on my
account, and, if you please, sir, I am the boy to be
blamed, for I was the cause of the trouble.”

This drew out the story of Conway’s harsh treat-
ment of the smaller boys. As Binny related the
wrongs of his playfellows, saying very little of his
own grievances, I noticed that Mr. Grimshaw’s
122 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

hand, unknown to himself perhaps, rested lightly
from time to time on Wallace’s sunny hair. The
examination finished, Mr. Grimshaw leaned on the
desk thoughtfully for a moment, and then said :—

“Every boy in this school knows that it is
against the rules to fight. If one boy maltreats
another, within school-bounds, or within school-
hours, that is a matter for me to settle. The case
should be laid before me. I disapprove of tale-
bearing, I never encourage it in the slightest de-
gree ; but when one pupil systematically persecutes
a schoolmate, it is the duty of some head-boy to
inform me. No pupil has a right to take the law
into his own hands. If there is any fighting to be
done, I am the person to be consulted. I disap-
prove of boys’ fighting; it is unnecessary and un-
christian. In the present instance, I consider
every large boy in this school at fault; but as the
offense is one of omission rather than commission,
my punishment must rest only on the two boys
convicted of misdemeanor. Conway loses his re-
cess for a month, and Bailey has a page added to
his Latin lessons for the next four recitations. I
now request Bailey and Conway to shake hands in
the presence of the school, and acknowledge their
regret at what has occurred.”

Conway and I approached each other slowly and
cautiously, as if we were bent upon another hostile
collision. We clasped hands in the tamest man-
ner imaginable, and Conway mumbled, “I’m sorry
I fought with you.”
I FIGHT CONWAY 123

“T think you are,” I replied, drily, “and I’m
sorry I had to thrash you.”

“You can go to your seats,” said Mr. Grimshaw,
turning his face aside to hide a smile. I am sure
my apology was a very good one.

I never had any more trouble with Conway.
He and his shadow, Seth Rodgers, gave me a wide
berth for many months. Nor was Binny Wallace
subjected to further molestation. Miss Abigail’s
sanitary stores, including a bottle of opodeldoc,
were never called into requisition. The six black
silk patches, with their elastic strings, are still
dangling from a beam in the garret of the Nutter
House, waiting for me to get into fresh difficulties.
CHAPTER XI
ALL ABOUT GYPSY

Tuis record of my life at Rivermouth would be
strangely incomplete did I not devote an entire
chapter to Gypsy. I had other pets, of course ;
for what healthy boy could long exist without nu-
merous friends in the animal kingdom? I had two
white mice that were forever gnawing their way
out of a pasteboard chateau, and crawling over my
face when I lay asleep. I used to keep the pink-
eyed little beggars in my bedroom, greatly to the
annoyance of Miss Abigail, who was constantly
fancying that one of the mice had secreted itself
somewhere about her person.

I also owned a dog, a terrier, who managed in
some inscrutable way to pick a quarrel with the
moon, and on bright nights kept up such a ki-yi-
ing in our back garden that we were finally forced
to dispose of him at private sale. He was purchased
by Mr. Oxford, the butcher. I protested against
the arrangement, and ever afterwards, when we
had sausages from Mr. Oxford’s shop, I made be-
lieve I detected in them certain evidences that
Cato had been foully dealt with.

Of birds I had no end — robins, purple-martins,
ALL ABOUT GYPSY 125

wrens, bulfinches, bobolinks, ringdoves, and _ pi-
geons. At one time I took solid comfort in the
iniquitous society of a dissipated old parrot, who
talked so terribly that the Rev. Wibird Hawkins,
happening to
get a sample of
Poll’s vitupera-
tive powers, pro-
nounced him “a
benighted hea-
then,’ and ad-
vised the Cap-
tain to get rid of
him. of turtles sup-
planted the par-
rot in my affec-
tions ; the turtles
gave way to rab-
bits; and the rabbits in turn yielded to the superior
charms of a small monkey, which the Captain
bought of a sailor lately from the coast of Africa.

But Gypsy was the prime favorite, in spite of
many rivals. I never grew weary of her. She
was the most knowing little thing in the world.
Her proper sphere in life — and the ‘one to which
she ultimately attained —was the saw-dust arena
of a traveling circus. There was nothing short of
the three R’s, reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic, that
Gypsy could not be taught. The gift of speech
was not hers, but the faculty of thought was,



Rev, Wibird Hawkins and Poll
126 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

My little friend, to be sure, was not exempt from
certain graceful weaknesses, inseparable, perhaps,
from the female character. She was very pretty,
and she knew it. She was also passionately fond
of dress —by which I mean her best harness.
When she had this on, her curvetings and prancings
were laughable, though in ordinary tackle she went
along demurely enough. There was something in
the enameled leather and the silver-washed mount-
ings that chimed with her artistic sense. To have
her mane braided, and a rose or a pansy stuck into
her forelock, was to make her too conceited for
anything.

She had another trait not rare among her sex.
She liked the attentions of young gentlemen, while
the society of girls bored her. She would drag
them, sulkily, in the cart; but as for permitting
one of them in the saddle, the idea was preposter-
ous. Once when Pepper Whitcomb’s sister, in
spite of our remonstrances, ventured to mount her,
Gypsy gave a little indignant neigh, and tossed the
gentle Emma heels over head in no time. But
with any of the boys the mare was as docile as a
lamb.

Her treatment of the several members of the
family was comical. For the Captain she enter-
tained a wholesome respect, and was always on her
good behavior when he was around. As to Miss
Abigail, Gypsy simply laughed at er — literally
laughed, contracting her upper lip and displaying
ALL ABOUT GYPSY 127

all her snow-white teeth, as if something about Miss
Abigail struck her, Gypsy, as being extremely
ridiculous.

Kitty Collins, for some reason or another, was
afraid of the pony, or pretended to be. The saga-
cious little animal knew it, of course, and fre-
quently, when Kitty was hanging out clothes near
the stable, the mare, being loose in the yard, would
make short plunges at her. Once Gypsy seized
the basket of
clothespins with
her teeth, and
rising on her
hind legs, pawing
the air with her
forefeet, followed
Kitty clear up
to the scullery
steps.

That part of
the yard was shut
off from the rest
by a gate; but
no gate was proof
against Gypsy’s
ingenuity. She
could Jet down
bars, lift up latches, draw bolts, and turn all sorts
of buttons. This accomplishment rendered it
hazardous for Miss Abigail or Kitty to leave any







Gypsy’s Lunch
128 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

eatables on the kitchen table near the window.
On one occasion Gypsy put in her head and lapped
up six custard pies that had been placed by the
casement to cool.

An account of my young lady’s various pranks
would fill a thick volume. A favorite trick of
hers, on being requested to “walk like Miss Abi-
gail,” was to assume a little skittish gait so true
to nature that Miss Abigail herself was obliged to
admit the cleverness of the imitation.

The idea of putting Gypsy through a system-
atic course of instruction was suggested to me by
a visit to the circus which gave an annual per-
formance in Rivermouth. This show embraced
among its attractions a number of trained Shet-
land ponies, and I determined that Gypsy should
likewise have the benefit of a liberal education. I
succeeded in teaching her to waltz, to fire a pistol
by tugging at a string tied to the trigger, to lie
down dead, to wink one eye, and to execute many
other feats of a difficult nature. She took to her
studies admirably, and enjoyed the whole thing as
much as any one.

The monkey was a perpetual marvel to Gypsy.
They became bosom-friends in an incredibly brief
period, and were never easy out of each other’s
sight. Prince Zany —that ’s what Pepper Whit-
comb and I christened him one day, much to the
disgust of the monkey, who bit a piece out of Pep-
per’s nose —resided in the stable, and went to
roost every night on the pony’s back, where I usu-
ALL ABOUT GYPSY 129

ally found him in the morning. Whenever I rode
out I was obliged to secure his Highness the
Prince with a stout cord to the fence, he chatter-
ing all the time like a madman.

One afternoon as I was cantering through the
crowded part of the town, I noticed that the peo-
ple in the street stopped, stared at me, and fell to
laughing. I turned round in the saddle, and there
was Zany, with a great burdock leaf in his paw,
perched up behind me on the crupper, as solemn
as a judge.

After a few months, poor Zany sickened myste-
riously and died. The dark thought occurred to
me then, and comes back to me now with re-
doubled force, that Miss Abigail must have given
him some hot-drops. Zany left a large circle of
sorrowing friends, if not relatives. Gypsy, I think,
never entirely recovered from the shock occasioned
by his early demise. She became fonder of me,
though; and one of her cunningest demonstra-
tions was to escape from the stable-yard, and trot
up to the door of the Temple Grammar School,
where I would discover her at recess patiently
waiting for me, with her forefeet on the second
step, and wisps of straw standing out all over her,
like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

I should fail if I tried to tell you how dear the
pony was to me. Even hard, unloving men be-
come attached to the horses they take care of ; so
I, who was neither unloving nor hard, grew to love
every glossy hair of the pretty little creature that
130 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

depended on me for her soft straw bed and her
daily modicum of oats. In my prayer at night I
never forgot to mention Gypsy with the rest of
the family —generally setting forth
her claims first.

Whatever relates to Gypsy belongs
properly to this narrative ; therefore
I offer no apology for rescuing from
oblivion, and boldly printing here a
short composition which I wrote in
the early part of my first quarter at
the Temple Grammar School. It is
my maiden effort in a difficult art, and
is, perhaps, lacking in those graces of
thought and style which are reached
only after the severest practice.

Every Wednesday morning on en-
tering school, each pupil was expected
to lay his exercise on Mr. Grimshaw’s
desk ; the subject was usually selected
by Mr. Grimshaw himself, the Monday previous.
With a humor characteristic of him, our teacher
had instituted two prizes, one for the best and the
other for the worst composition of the month.
The first prize consisted of a penknife, or a pencil-
case, or some such article dear to the heart of
youth ; the second prize entitled the winner to
wear for an hour or two a sort of conical paper
cap, on the front of which was written, in tall
letters, this modest admission: I am a DunceE!



Prize No. 2
ALL ABOUT GYPSY I31

The competitor who took prize No. 2 was not gen-
erally an object of envy.

My pulse beat high with pride and expectation
that Wednesday morning, as I laid my essay, neatly
folded, on the master’s table. I firmly decline to
say which prize I won; but here is the composi-
tion to speak for itself : —

he Lone &

ven, ew front Soot when af
bent ole Ler Lend ancl Lftid
Vig Up % Khe Mrs ez nd An
Pie me Ars De avatar by
ta Z 7 Moar dhe, na, + A hed
hoof He avn v7 :

is Fk f Mhe Aron yoessen

4s Rar ~
LBs,


132 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

It is no small-author vanity that induces me to
publish this stray leaf of natural history. TI lay it
before our young folks, not for their admiration,
but for their criticism. Let each reader take his
lead pencil and remorselessly correct the ortho-
graphy, the capitalization, and the punctuation of
the essay. I shall not feel hurt at seeing my
treatise cut all to pieces; though I think highly
of the production, not on account of its literary
excellence, which I candidly admit is not overpow-
ering, but because it was written years and years
ago about Gypsy, by a little fellow who, when I
strive to recall him, appears to me like a reduced
ghost of my present self.

Iam confident that any reader who has ever had
pets, birds or animals, will forgive me for this brief
digression.
CHAPTER XII

WINTER AT RIVERMOUTH

“JT GUESS we’re going to have a regular old-
fashioned snowstorm,” said Captain Nutter, one
bleak December morning, casting a peculiarly
nautical glance skyward.

The Captain was always hazarding prophecies
about the weather, which somehow never turned
out according to his prediction. The vanes on
the church steeples seemed to take a cynical
pleasure in humiliating the dear old gentleman.
If he said it was going to be a clear day, a dense
sea fog was pretty certain to set in before noon.
Once he caused a protracted drought by assuring
us every morning, for six consecutive weeks, that
it would rain in afew hours. But, sure enough,
that afternoon it began snowing.

Now I had not seen a snowstorm since I was
eighteen months old, and of course remembered
nothing about it. A boy familiar from his infancy
with the rigors of our New England winters can
form no idea of the impression made on me by
this natural phenomenon. My delight and sur-
prise were as boundless as if the heavy gray sky
had let down a shower of pond-lilies and white
134 : THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

roses, instead of snowflakes. It happened to be
a half-holiday, so I had nothing to do but watch
the feathery crystals whirling hither and thither
through the air. I stood by the sitting-room win-
dow gazing at the wonder until twilight shut out
the novel scene.

We had had several slight flurries of hail and
snow before, but this was a regular nor’easter.

Several inches of snow had already fallen. The
rosebushes at the door drooped with the weight of
their magical blossoms, and the two posts that
held the garden gate were transformed into stately
Turks, with white turbans, guarding the entrance
to the Nutter House.

The storm increased at sundown, and continued
with unabated violence through the night. The
next morning, when I jumped out of bed, the sun
was shining brightly, the cloudless heavens wore
the tender azure of June, and the whole earth lay
muffled up to the eyes, as it were, in a thick man-
tle of milk-white down.

It was a very deep snow. The Oldest Inhabit-
ant (what would become of a New England town
or village without its oldest inhabitant ?) overhauled
his almanacs, and pronounced it the deepest snow
we had had for twenty years. It could n’t have
been much deeper without smothering us all. Our
street was a sight to be seen, or, rather, it was a
sight not to be seen; for very little street was
visible. One huge drift completely banked up
WINTER AT RIVERMOUTH * 135

our front door and half covered my bedroom win-
dow.

There was no school that day, for all the thor-
oughfares were impassable. By twelve o'clock,
however, the great snow-ploughs, each drawn by
four yokes of oxen, broke a wagon-path through
the principal streets ; but the foot-passengers had
a hard time of it floundering in the arctic drifts.

The Captain and I cut a tunnel, three feet wide
and six feet high, from our front door to the side-
walk opposite. It was a beautiful cavern, with its
walls and roof inlaid with mother-of-pearl and dia-



Talking over the Great Storm

monds. Iam sure the ice palace of the Russian
Empress, in Cowper’s poem, was not a more su-
perb piece of architecture.

The thermometer began falling shortly before
sunset, and we had the bitterest cold night I ever
experienced. This brought out the Oldest Inhab-
itant again the next day — and what a gay old boy


136 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

he was for deciding everything! Our tunnel was
turned into solid ice. A crust thick enough to
bear men and horses had formed over the snow
. everywhere, and the air was alive with merry sleigh-
bells. Icy stalactites, a yard long, hung from the
eaves of the house, and the Turkish sentinels at
the gate looked as if they had given up all hopes
of ever being relieved from duty.

So the winter set in cold and glittering. Every-
thing out of doors was sheathed in silver mail. To
quote from Charley Marden, it was “cold enough
to freeze the tail off a brass monkey” —an ob-
servation which seemed to me extremely happy,
though I knew little or ncthing concerning the
endurance of brass monkeys, having never seen
one.

Thad looked forward to the advent of the season
with grave apprehensions, nerving myself to meet
dreary nights and monotonous days; but summer
itself was not more jolly than winter at Rivermouth.
Snow-balling at school, skating on the Mill Pond,
coasting by moonlight, long rides behind Gypsy in

a brand-new little sleigh built expressly for her,
- were sports no less exhilarating than those which
belonged to the sunny months. And then Thanks-
giving! The nose of Memory —why should not
Memory have a nose ?— dilates with pleasure over
the rich perfume of Miss Abigail’s forty mince-
pies, each one more delightful than the other, like
the Sultan’s forty wives. Christmas was another
WINTER AT RIVERMOUTH 137

red-letter day, though it was not so generally ob-
served in New England as it is now.

The great wood-fire in the tiled chimney-place
made our sitting-room very cheerful of winter
nights. When the north-wind howled about the
eaves, and the sharp fingers of the sleet tapped
against the window-panes, it was nice to be so
warmly sheltered from
the storm. A dish of
apples and a pitcher
of chilly cider were
always served during
the evening. The
Captain had a funny
way of leaning back
in the chair and éat-
ing his apple with his
eyes closed. Some-
times I played domi-
noes with him, and
sometimes Miss Abigail read aloud to us, pronoun-
cing ‘‘to” Zoe, and sounding all the eds.

In a former chapter I alluded to Miss Abigail’s
managing propensities. She had effected many
changes in the Nutter House before I came there
to live; but there was one thing against which
she had long contended without being able to over-
come. This was the Captain’s pipe. On first
taking command of the household, she prohibited
soking in the sitting-room, where it had been the



Eating his Apple
138 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

old gentleman’s custom to take a whiff or two of
the fragrant weed after meals. The edict went
forth —and so did the pipe. An excellent move,
no doubt; but then the house was his, and if he
saw fit to keep a tub of tobacco burning in the
middle of the parlor floor, he had a perfect right
to do so. However, he humored her in this as in
other matters, and smoked by stealth, like a guilty
creature, in the barn, or about the gardens. That
was practicable in summer, but in winter the Cap-
tain was hard put to it. When he could not stand
it longer, he retreated to his bedroom and barri-
caded the door. Such was the position of affairs
at the time of which I write.

One morning, a few days after the great snow,
as Miss Abigail was dusting the chronometer in
the hall, she beheld Captain Nutter slowly descend-
ing the staircase, with a long clay pipe in his
mouth. Miss Abigail could hardly credit her own
eyes.

“Dan’el!” she gasped, retiring heavily on the
hat-rack.

The tone of reproach with which this word was
uttered failed to produce the slightest effect on
the Captain, who merely removed the pipe from
his lips for an instant, and blew a cloud into the
chilly air. The thermometer stood at two degrees
below zero in our hall.

“Dan’el!” cried Miss Abigail, hysterically —
“Dan’el, don’t come near me!” Whereupon she
WINTER AT RIVERMOUTH 139

fainted away ; for the smell of tobacco smoke al-
ways made her deadly sick.

Kitty Collins rushed from the kitchen with a
basin of water, and set to work bathing Miss Abi-
gail’s temples and chaffing her hands. I thought
my grandfather rather cruel, as he stood there



Kitty and Tom enjoying the Foke

with a half-smile on his countenance, complacently
watching Miss Abigail’s sufferings. When she
was “brought to,” the Captain sat down beside
her, and, with a lovely twinkle in his eye, said
softly :

“ Abigail, my dear, ¢here was n't any tobacco in
that pipe! It was anew pipe. I fetched it down
for Tom to blow soap-bubbles with.”
140 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

At these words Kitty Collins hurried away, her
features working strangely. Several minutes later
I came upon her in the scullery with the greater
portion of a crash towel stuffed into her mouth.
“Miss Abygil smelt the terbacca with her oi!”
cried Kitty, partially removing the cloth, and then
immediately stopping herself up again.

The Captain’s joke furnished us — that is, Kitty
and me —with mirth for many a day; as to Miss
Abigail, I think she never wholly pardoned him.
After this, Captain Nutter gradually gave up
smoking, which is an untidy, injurious, disgrace-
ful, and highly pleasant habit.

A boy’s life in a secluded New England town
in winter does not afford many points for illus-
tration. Of course he gets his ears or toes frost-
bitten ; of course he smashes his sled against
another boy’s; of course he bangs his head on the
ice, and he’s a lad of no enterprise whatever if
he does not manage to skate into an eel-hole, and
be brought home half-drowned. All these things
happened to me; but, as they lack novelty, I pass
them over to tell you about the famous snow-fort
which we built on Slatter’s Hill.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SNOW-FORT ON SLATTER’S HILL

THE memory of man, even that of the Oldest
Inhabitant, runneth not back to the time when
there did not exist a feud between the North
End and the South End boys of Rivermouth.

The origin of the feud is involved in mystery ;
it is impossible to say which party was the first
ageressor in the far-off ante-revolutionary ages ;
but the fact remains that the youngsters of those
antipodal sections entertained a mortal hatred for
each other, and that this hatred had been handed
down from generation to generation, like Miles
Standish’s punch-bowl.

I know not what laws, natural or unnatural,
regulated the warmth of the quarrel; but at some
seasons it raged more violently than at others.
This winter both parties were unusually lively and
antagonistic. Great was the wrath of the South-
Enders when they discovered that the North-
Enders had thrown up a fort on the crown of
Slatter’s Hill.

Slatter’s Hill, or No-man’s-land, as it was gener-
ally called, was a rise of ground covering, perhaps,
an acre and a quarter, situated on an imaginary
142 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

line, marking the boundary between the two dis-
tricts. An immense stratum of granite, which
here and there thrust out a wrinkled bowlder, pre-
vented the site from being used for building pur-
poses. The street ran on either side of the hill,
from one part of which a quantity of rock had
been removed to form the underpinning of the
new jail. This excavation made the approach from
that point all but impossible, especially when the
ragged ledges were a-glitter with ice. You see
what a spot it was for a snow-fort.

One evening twenty or thirty of the North-
Enders quietly took possession of Slatter’s Hill,
and threw up a strong line of breastworks, some-
thing after this shape:

The rear of the intrenchment, being protected
by the quarry, was left open. The walls were four
feet high, and twenty-two inches thick, strength-
ened at the angles by stakes driven firmly into the
ground.

Fancy the rage of the South-Enders the next
day, when they spied our snowy citadel, with Jack
THE SNOW-FORT ON SLATTER’S HILL 143

Harris’s red silk pocket-handkerchief floating de-
fiantly from the flagstaff.

In less than an hour it was known all over
town, in military circles at least, that the “ Puddle-
dockers” and the “ River-rats” (these were the
derisive sub-titles bestowed on our South-End
foes) intended to attack the fort that Saturday
afternoon.

At two o'clock all the fighting boys of the
Temple Grammar School, and as many recruits
as we could muster, lay behind the walls of Fort
Slatter, with three hundred compact snow-balls
piled up in pyramids, awaiting the approach of
the enemy. The enemy was not slow in making
his approach —fifty strong, headed by one Mat
Ames. Our forces were under the command of
General J. Harris.

Before the action commenced, a meeting was
arranged between the rival commanders, who
drew up and signed certain rules and regulations
respecting the conduct of the battle. As it was
impossible for the North-Enders to occupy the fort
permanently, it was stipulated that the South-
Enders should assault it only on Wednesday and
Saturday afternoons between the hours of two and
six. For them to take possession of the place at
any other time was not to constitute a capture, but,
on the contrary, was to be considered a dishonora-
ble and cowardly act.
144 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

The North-Enders, on the other hand, agreed to
give up the fort whenever ten of the storming
party succeeded in obtaining at one time a footing
on the parapet, and were able to hold the same
for the space of two minutes. Both sides were to
abstain from putting pebbles into their snow-balls,
nor was it permissible to use frozen ammunition.
A snow - ball
soaked in water
and left out to
cool was a pro-
jectile which in
previous years
had been re-
sorted to with
disastrous re-
sults.

These prelim-
inaries settled,
the command-
ers retired to
theirrespective
corps. The interview had taken place on the hill-
side between the opposing lines.

General Harris divided his men into two bodies ;
the first comprised the most skillful marksmen, or
gunners ; the second, the reserve force, was com-
posed of the strongest boys, whose duty it was to
repel the scaling parties, and to make occasional



The Commanders
THE SNOW-FORT ON SLATTER’S HILL 145

sallies for the purpose of capturing prisoners, who
were bound by the articles of treaty to faithfully
serve under our flag until they were exchanged at
the close of the day.

The repellers were called light infantry; but
when they carried on operations beyond the fort
they became cavalry. It was also their duty, when
not otherwise engaged, to manufacture snow-balls.
The General’s staff consisted of five Templars (I
among the number, with the rank of Major), who
carried the General’s orders and looked after the
wounded.

General Mat Ames, a veteran commander, was
no less wide-awake in the disposition of his army.
Five companies, each numbering but six men, in
order not to present too big a target to our sharp-
shooters, were to charge the fort from different
points, their advance being covered by a heavy fire
from the gunners posted in the rear. Each scaler
was provided with only two rounds of ammunition,
which were not to be used until he had mounted
the breastwork and could deliver his shots on our
heads.

The following diagram represents the interior of
the fort just previous to the assault. Nothing on
earth could represent the state of things after the
first volley.
146 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY



a. Flagstaff. ¢. Ammunition. J,/- Gunners in position
5. General Harris and his Staff. @. Hospital. gg. The quarry.
e, e. Reserve corps.

The enemy was posted thus :

~ @ an
~~ — = - Ss
3 ne x Ea b
a,a. The five attacking columns. 4, 4. Artillery. c. General Ames’s head-
quarters.

The thrilling moment had now arrived. If I
had been going into a real engagement I could not
have been more deeply impressed by the impor-
tance of the occasion.

The fort opened fire first —a single ball from
the dexterous hand of General Harris taking Gen-
eral Ames in the very pit of his stomach. A
cheer went up from Fort Slatter. In an instant
the air was thick with flying missiles, in the midst
of which we dimly descried the storming parties
sweeping up the hill, shoulder to shoulder. The
THE SNOW-FORT ON SLATTER’S HILL 147

shouts of the leaders, and the snow-balls bursting
like shells about our ears, made it very lively.

Not more than a dozen of the enemy succeeded
in reaching the crest of the hill; five of these
clambered upon the icy walls, where they were
instantly grabbed by the legs and jerked into the
fort. The rest retired confused and blinded by
our well-directed fire.

When General Harris (with his right eye bunged
up) said, “Soldiers, I am proud of you!” my heart
swelled in my bosom.

The victory, however, had not been without its
price. Six North-Enders, having rushed out to
harass the discomfited enemy, were gallantly cut
off by General Ames and captured. Among these
were Lieutenant P. Whitcomb (who had no’ busi-
ness to join in the charge, being weak in the knees)
and Captain Fred Langdon, of General Harris's
staff. . Whitcomb was one of the most notable
shots on our side, though he was not much to
boast of in a rough-and-tumble fight, owing to the
weakness before mentioned. General Ames put
him among the gunners, and we were quickly made
aware of the loss we had sustained, by receiving
a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with
unerring instinct on any nose that was the least
bit exposed. I have known one of Pepper’s snow-
balls, fired point-blank, to turn a corner and hit a
boy who considered himself absolutely safe.

But we had no time for vain regrets. The bat-
148 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

tle raged. Already there were two bad cases of
black-eye, and one of nose-bleed, in the hospital.

It was glorious excitement, those pell-mell on-
slaughts and hand-to-hand struggles. Twice we
were within an ace of being driven from our
stronghold, when General Harris and his staff
leaped recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled
the besiegers heels over head downhill.

At sunset the garrison of Fort Slatter was still
unconquered, and the South- Enders, in a solid
phalanx, marched off whistling “ Yankee Doodle,”
while we cheered and jeered them until they were
out of hearing. ;

General Ames remained behind to effect an ex-
change of prisoners. We held thirteen of his men,
and he eleven of ours. General Ames proposed to
call it an even thing, since many of his eleven pris-
oners were officers, while nearly all our thirteen
captives were privates. A dispute arising on this
point, the two noble generals came to fisticuffs,
and in the fracas our brave commander got his
remaining well eye badly damaged. This did not
prevent him from writing a general order the next
day, on a slate, in which he complimented the
troops on their heroic behavior.

On the following Wednesday the siege was re-
newed. I forget whether it was on that afternoon
or the next that we lost Fort Slatter; but lose it
we did, with much valuable ammunition and sev-
eral men. After a series of desperate assaults,


Holding the Fort on Slatter’s Hill
THE SNOW-FORT ON SLATTER’S HILL I5t

we forced General Ames to capitulate; and he, in
turn, made the place too hot to hold us. So from
day to day the tide of battle surged to and fro,
sometimes favoring our arms, and sometimes those
of the enemy.

General Ames handled his men with great skill ;
his deadliest foe could not deny that. Once he
out-generaled our commander in the following
manner: He massed his gunners on our left and
opened a brisk fire, under cover of which a single
company (six men) advanced on that angle of the
fort. Our reserves on the right rushed over to
defend the threatened point. Meanwhile, four
companies of the enemy’s scalers made a détour
round the foot of the hill, and dashed into Fort
Slatter without opposition. At the same moment
General Ames’s gunners closed in on our left, and
there we were between two fires. Of course we
had to vacate the fort. A cloud rested on General
Harris’s military reputation until his superior tac-
tics enabled him to dispossess the enemy.

As the winter wore on, the war-spirit waxed
fiercer and fiercer. Finally the provision against
using heavy substances in the snow-balls was dis-
regarded. A ball stuck full of sand-bird shot
came tearing into Fort Slatter. In retaliation,
General Harris ordered a broadside of shells; i. e.
snow-balls containing marbles. After this, both
sides never failed to freeze their ammunition.

It was no longer child’s play to march up to the
152 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

walls of Fort Slatter, nor was the position of the
besieged less perilous. At every assault three or
four boys on each side were disabled. It was not
an infrequent occurrence for the combatants to
hold up a flag of truce while they removed some
insensible comrade.

Matters grew worse and worse. Seven North-
Enders had been seriously wounded, and a dozen
South-Enders were reported on the sick list. The
selectmen of the town awoke to the fact of what
was going on, and detailed a posse of police to
prevent further disturbance. The boys at the foot
of the hill, South-Enders as it happened, finding
themselves assailed in the rear and on the flank,
turned round and attempted to beat off the watch-
men. In this they were sustained by numerous
volunteers from the fort, who looked upon the
interference as tyrannical.

The watch were determined fellows, and charged
the boys valiantly, driving them all into the fort,
where we made common cause, fighting side by
side like the best of friends. In vain the four
guardians of the peace rushed up the hill, flourish-
ing their clubs and calling upon us to surrender.
They could not get within ten yards of the fort,
our fire was so destructive. In one of the onsets
a man named Mugridge, more valorous than his
peers, threw himself upon the parapet, when he
was seized by twenty pairs of hands, and dragged
inside the breastwork, where fifteen boys sat down
on him to keep him quiet.
THE SNOW-FORT ON SLATTER’S HILL 153

Perceiving that it was impossible with their
small number to dislodge us, the watch sent for
reinforcements. Their call was responded to,
not only by the whole constabulary force (eight
men), but by a numerous body of citizens, who



The Unsuccessful Attack

had become alarmed at the prospect of a riot.
This formidable array brought us to our senses:
we began to think that maybe discretion was the
better part of valor. General Harris and General
Ames, with their respective staffs, held a council
of war in the hospital, and a backward move.
ment was decided on. So, after one grand fare-
well volley, we fled, sliding, jumping, rolling,
154 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

tumbling down the quarry at the rear of the fort,
and escaped without losing a man.

But we lost Fort Slatter forever. Those battle-
scarred ramparts were razed to the ground, and
humiliating ashes sprinkled over the historic spot,
near which a solitary lynx-eyed policeman was
seen prowling from time to time during the rest
of the winter.

The event passed into a legend, and afterwards,
when later instances of pluck and endurance
were spoken of, the boys would say, ‘ By golly!
you ought to have been at the fights on Slatter’s
Hill!”
CHAPTER XIV
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN

Ir was spring again. The snow had faded
away like a dream, and we were awakened, so to
speak, by the sudden chirping of robins in our
back garden. Marvelous transformation of snow-
drifts into lilacs, wondrous miracle of the unfold-
ing leaf! We read in the Holy Book how our
Saviour, at the marriage-feast, changed the water
into wine; we pause and wonder, but every hour
a greater miracle is wrought at our feet, if we have
but eyes to see it.

I had now been a year at Rivermouth. If you
do not know what sort of boy I was, it is not be-
cause I have been lacking in frankness with you.
Of my progress at school I say little; for this is
a story, pure and simple, and not a treatise on edu-
cation. Behold me, however, well up in most of
the classes. I have worn my Latin grammar into
tatters, and am in the first book of Virgil. I in-
terlard my conversation at home with easy quo-
tations from that poet, and impress Captain
Nutter with a lofty notion of my learning. I am
likewise translating Les Aventures de Télémaque
from the French, and shall tackle Blair's Lectures
156 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the next term. I am ashamed of my crude com-
position about The Horse, and can do better now.
Sometimes my head almost aches with the variety
of my knowledge. I consider Mr. Grimshaw the
greatest scholar that ever lived, and I do not know
which I would rather be —a learned man like
him, or a circus-rider.

My thoughts revert to this particular spring
more frequently than to any other period of my
boyhood, for it was marked by an event that left
an indelible impression on my memory. As I
pen these pages, I feel that I am writing of
something which happened yesterday, so vividly
it all comes back to me.

Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as
being in some way mixed up with his destiny.
While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he hears
the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is
older, he wanders by the sandy shore, watching
the waves that come plunging up the beach like
white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them ;
his eye follows the lessening sail as it fades into
the blue horizon, and he burns for the time when
he shall stand on the quarter-deck of his own ship,
and go sailing proudly across that mysterious
waste of waters.

Then the town itself is full of hints and flavors
of the sea. The gables and roofs of the houses
facing eastward are covered with red rust, like the
flukes of old anchors; a salty smell pervades the
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 157

air, and dense gray fogs, the very breath of Ocean,
periodically creep up into the quiet streets and
envelop everything. The terrific storms that
lash the coast; the kelp and spars, and sometimes
the bodies of drowned men, tossed on shore by the
scornful waves; the shipyards, the wharves, and
the tawny fleet of fishing-smacks yearly fitted out
at Rivermouth—these things, and a hundred
other, feed the imagination and fill the brain of
every healthy boy with dreams of adventure. He
learns to swim almost as soon as he can walk ; he
draws in with his mother’s milk the art of hand-
ling an oar: he is born a sailor, whatever he may
turn out to be afterwards.

To own the whole or a portion of a row-boat is
his earliest ambition. No wonder that I, born to
this life, and coming back to it with freshest sym-
pathies, should have caught the prevailing in-
fection. No wonder I longed to buy a part of the
trim little sail-boat Dolphin, which chanced just
then to be in the market. This was in the latter
part of May.

Three shares, at five or six dollars each, I for-
get which, had already been taken by Phil Adams,
Fred Langdon, and Binny Wallace. The fourth
and remaining share hung fire. Unless a_pur-
chaser could be found for this, the bargain was
to fall through.

I am afraid I required but slight urging to join
in the investment. I had four dollars and fifty
158 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY



























I faced Captain Nutter



cents on hand,
and the treasur-
erof the Centi-
pedes advanced
me the balance,
receiving my
silver __ pencil-
case as ample
security. It was
a proud moment
when I stood on
the wharf with
my partners, in-
specting the
Dolphin, moored
at the foot of
a very slippery
flight of steps.
She was painted
white with. a
green stripe out-

side, and on the stern a yellow dolphin, with its
scarlet mouth wide open, stared with a surprised
expression at its own reflection in the water. The

boat was a great bargain.

I whirled my cap in the air, and ran to the
stairs leading down from the wharf, when a hand

was laid gently on my shoulder.
I never saw such an old

faced Captain Nutter.

I turned, and

sharp-eye as he was in those days.
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 159

I knew he would not be angry with me for
buying a row-boat ; but I also knew that the little
bowsprit suggesting a jib, and the tapering mast
ready for its few square feet of canvas, were trifles
not likely to meet his approval. As far as rowing
on the river, among the wharves, was concerned,
the Captain had long since withdrawn his decided
objections, having convinced himself, by going
out with me several times, that I could manage a
pair of sculls as well as anybody.

I was right in my surmises. He commanded me,
in the most emphatic terms, never to go out in
the Dolphin without leaving the mast in the boat-
house. This curtailed my anticipated sport, but
the pleasure of having a pull whenever I wanted
it remained. I never disobeyed the Captain’s
orders touching the sail, though I sometimes ex-
tended my row beyond the points he had indi-
cated.

The river was dangerous for sail-boats. Squalls,
without the slightest warning, were of frequent
occurrence; scarcely a year passed that three or
four persons were not drowned under the very
windows of the town, and these, oddly enough,
were generally sea-captains, who either did not
understand the river, or lacked the skill to handle
a small craft.

A knowledge of such disasters, one of which I
witnessed, consoled me somewhat when I saw Phil
Adams skimming over the water in a spanking
160 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

breeze with every stitch of canvas set. There
were few better yachtsmen than Phil Adams. He
usually went sailing alone, for both Langdon and
Binny Wallace were under the same restrictions I
was,

Not long after the purchase of the boat, we
planned an excursion to Sandpeep Island, the
last of the islands in the harbor. We purposed to
start early in the morning, and return with the
tide in the moonlight. Our only difficulty was
to obtain a whole day’s exemption from school,
the customary half-holiday not being long enough
for our picnic. Somehow, we could not work it;
but fortune arranged it for us. I may say here,
that, whatever else I did, I never played truant
(“hookey” we called it) in my life.

One afternoon the four owners of the Dolphin
exchanged significant glances when Mr. Grimshaw
announced from the desk that there would be no
school the following day, he having just received
intelligence of the death of his uncle in Boston.
I was sincerely attached to Mr. Grimshaw, but I
am afraid that the death of his uncle did not affect
me as it ought to have done.

We were up before sunrise the next morning,
in order to take advantage of the flood tide, which
waits fornoman. Our preparations for the cruise
were made the previous evening. In the way of
eatables and drinkables, we had stored in the
stern of the Dolphin a generous bag of hard-tack
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 161

(for the chowder), a piece of pork to fry the cun-
ners in, three gigantic apple-pies (bought at Pet-
tingil’s), half a dozen lemons, and a keg of spring
water —the last-named article we slung over the
side, to keep it cool, as soon as we got under way.
The crockery and the bricks for our camp-stove
we placed in the bows with the groceries, which ~
included sugar, pepper, salt, and a bottle of pickles.
Phil Adams contributed to the outfit a small tent
of unbleached cotton cloth, under which we in-
tended to take our nooning.

We unshipped the mast, threw in an extra oar,
and were ready to embark. I do not believe that
Christopher Columbus, when he started on his
rather successful voyage of discovery, felt half the
responsibility and importance that weighed upon
me as I sat on the middle seat of the Dolphin,
with my oar resting in the row-lock. I wonder if
Christopher Columbus quietly slipped out of the
house without letting his estimable family know
what he was up to? Charley Marden, whose
father had promised to cane him if he ever stepped
foot on sail or row boat, came down to the wharf
in a sour-grape humor, to see us off. Nothing
would tempt 42m to go out on the river in sucha
crazy clam-shell of a boat. He pretended that he
did not expect to behold us alive again, and tried
to throw a wet blanket over the expedition.

“Guess you’ll have a squally time of it,” said
Charley, casting off the painter. “I’Il drop in at
162 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Pg ae

old Newbury’s” (Newbury was the parish under-
taker) “and leave word, as I go along!”

“Bosh!”’ muttered Phil Adams, sticking the
boat-hook into the string-piece of the wharf, and
sending the Dolphin half a dozen yards towards
the current.

How calm and lovely the river was! Not a
ripple stirred on the glassy surface, broken only
by the sharp cutwater of our tiny craft. The sun,
as round and red as an August moon, was by this
time peering above the water-line,

The town had drifted behind us, and we were
entering among the group of islands. Sometimes
we could almost touch with our boat-hook the
shelving banks on either side. As we neared the
mouth of the harbor, a little breeze now and then
wrinkled the blue water, shook the spangles from
the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral mist-
wreaths that still clung along shore. The meas-
ured dip of our oars and the drowsy twitterings of
the birds seemed to mingle with, rather than break,
the enchanted silence that reigned about us.

The scent of the new clover comes back to me
now, as I recall that delicious morning when we
floated away in a fairy boat down a river like a
dream !

The sun was well up when the nose of the Dol-
phin nestled against the snow-white bosom of
Sandpeep Island. This island, as I have said
before, was the last of the cluster, one side of it


On Sandpeep Island
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 165

being washed by the sea. We landed on the
river side, the sloping sands and quiet water af-
fording us a good place to moor the boat.

It took us an hour or more to transport our
stores to the spot selected for the encampment.
Having pitched our tent, using the five oars to
support the canvas, we got out our lines, and
went down the rocks seaward to fish. It was early
for cunners, but we were lucky enough to catch
as nice a mess as ever you saw. A cod for the
chowder was not so easily secured. At last
Binny Wallace hauled in a plump little fellow
crusted all over with flaky silver.

To skin the fish, build our fireplace, and cook
the chowder, kept us busy the next two hours.

The fresh air and the exercise had given us the
appetites of wolves, and we were about famished
by the time the savory mixture was ready for our
clam-shell saucers.

I shall not insult the rising generation on the
seaboard by telling them how delectable is a
chowder compounded and eaten in this Robinson
Crusoe fashion. As for the boys who live inland,
and know naught of such marine feasts, my heart
is full of pity for them. What wasted lives!
Not to know the delights of a clam-bake, not to
love chowder, to be ignorant of lob-scouse !

How happy we were, we four, sitting cross.
legged in the crisp salt grass, with the invigorat-
ing sea-breeze blowing gratefully through our
166 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

hair! What a joyous thing was life, and how far
off seemed death — death, that lurks in all pleasant
places, and was so near }

The banquet finished, Phil Adams drew from
his pocket a handful of sweet-fern cigars; but as
none of the party could indulge without imminent
risk of becoming ill, we all, on one pretext or an-
other, declined, and Phil smoked by himself.

The wind had freshened by this, and we found
it comfortable to put on the jackets which had
been thrown aside in the heat of the day. We
strolled along the beach and gathered large quan-
tities of the fairy-woven Iceland moss, which, at
certain seasons, is washed to these shores; then
we played at ducks and drakes, and then, the sun
being sufficiently low, we went in bathing.

Before our bath was ended a slight change had
come over the sky and sea; fleecy-white clouds
scudded here and there, and a muffled moan from
the breakers caught our ears from time to time.
While we were dressing, a few hurried drops of
rain came lisping down, and we adjourned to the
tent to wait the passing of the squall.

“We’re all right, anyhow,” said Phil Adams.
“Tt won’t be much of a blow, and we’ll be as
snug as a bug ina rug, here in the tent, particu-
larly if we have that lemonade which some of you
fellows were going to make.”

By an oversight, the lemons had been left in the
boat.. Binny Wallace volunteered to go for them.
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 167

“Put an extra stone on the painter, Binny,”
said Adams, calling after him; “it would be awk-
ward to have the Dolphin give us the slip and re-
turn to port minus her passengers.”

“That it would,’ answered Binny, scrambling
down the rocks.

Sandpeep Island is diamond shaped — one point
running out into the sea, and the other looking to-
wards the town. Our tent was on the river side.
Though the Dolphin was also on the same side,
it lay out of sight by the beach at the farther ex-
tremity of the island.

Binny Wallace had been absent five or six
minutes, when we heard him calling our several
names in tones that indicated distress or surprise,
we could not tell which. Our first thought was,
“The boat has broken adrift!”

We sprung to our feet and hastened down to
the beach. On turning the bluff which hid the
mooring-place from our view, we found the can-
jecture correct. Not only was the Dolphin afloat,
but poor little Binny Wallace was standing in the
bows with his arms stretched helplessly towards
us — drifting out to sea!

“Head the boat in shore!” shouted Phil Adams.

Wallace ran to the tiller; but the slight cockle-
shell merely swung round and drifted broadside
on. Oh, if we had but left a single scull in the
Dolphin !

“Can you swim it?” cried Adams desperately,
168 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

using his hand as a speaking-trumpet, for the dis-
tance between the boat and the island widened
momently.

Binny Wallace looked down at the sea, which was
covered with white caps, and made a despairing
gesture. He knew, and we knew, that the stout-
est swimmer could not live forty seconds in those
angry waters.

A wild, insane light came into Phil Adams’s
eyes, as he stood knee-deep in the boiling surf,
and for an instant I think he meditated plunging
into the ocean after the receding boat.

The sky darkened, and an ugly look stole rap-
idly over the broken surface of the sea.

Binny Wallace half rose from his seat in the
stern, and waved his hand to us in token of fare-
well. In spite of the distance, increasing every
instant, we could see his face plainly. The anx-
ious expression it wore at first had passed. It
was pale and meek now, and I love to think there
was akind of halo about it, like that which paint-
ers place around the forehead of a saint. So he
drifted away.

The sky grew darker and darker. It was only
by straining our eyes through the unnatural twi-
- light that we could keep the Dolphin in sight.
The figure of Binny Wallace was no longer visible,
for the boat itself had dwindled to a mere white
dot on the black water. Now we lost it, and our
hearts stopped throbbing ; and now the speck ap-
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 169

peared again, for an instant, on the crest of a high
wave.

Finally, it went out like a spark, and we saw it
no more. Then we gazed at each other, and dared
not speak.

Absorbed in following the course of the boat,
we had scarcely noticed the huddled inky clouds



Drifting Away

that sagged down all around us. From _ these
threatening masses, seamed at intervals with pale
lightning, there now burst a heavy peal of thun-
der that shook the ground under our feet. A sud.
170 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

den squall struck the sea, ploughing deep white
furrows into it, and at the same instant a single
piercing shriek rose above the tempest —the
frightened cry of a gull swooping over the island.
How it startled us !

It was impossible any longer to keep our foot-
ing on the beach. The wind and the breakers
would have swept us into the ocean if we had not
clung to each other with the desperation of drown-
ing men. Taking advantage of a momentary lull,
we crawled up the sands on our hands and knees,
and, pausing in the lee of the granite ledge to gain
breath, returned to the camp, where we found that
the gale had snapped all the fastenings of the tent
but one. Held by this, the puffed-out canvas
swayed in the wind like a balloon. It was a task
of some difficulty to secure it, which we did by
beating down the canvas with the oars.

After several trials, we succeeded in setting up
the tent on the leeward side of the ledge. Blinded
by the vivid flashes of lightning, and drenched by
the rain, which fell in torrents, we crept, half dead
with fear and anguish, under our flimsy shelter.
Neither the anguish nor the fear was on our own
account, for we were comparatively safe, but for
poor little Binny Wallace, driven out to sea in the
merciless gale. We shuddered to think of him in
that frail shell, drifting on and on to his grave,
the sky rent with lightning over his head, and the
green abysses yawning beneath him. We fell to
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 171

crying, the three of us, and cried I know not how
long.

Meanwhile the storm raged with augmented
fury. We were obliged to hold on to the ropes of
the tent to prevent it blowing away. The spray
from the river leaped several yards up the rocks
and clutched at us malignantly. The very island
trembled with the concussions of the sea beating
upon it, and at times I fancied that it had broken
loose from its foundation, and was floating off
with us. The breakers, streaked with angry phos-
phorus, were fearful to look at.

The wind rose higher and higher, cutting long
slits in the tent, through which the rain poured
incessantly. ‘Tocomplete the sum of our miseries,
the night was at hand. It came down suddenly,
at last, like a curtain, shutting in Sandpeep Island
from all the world.

It was a dirty night, as the sailors say. The
darkness was something that could be felt as well
as seen —it pressed down upon one with a cold,
clammy touch. Gazing into the hollow blackness,
all sorts of imaginable shapes seemed to start
forth from vacancy — brilliant colors, stars, prisms,
and dancing lights. What boy, lying awake at
night, has not amused or terrified himself by peo-
pling the spaces around his bed with these phe-
nomena of his own eyes ?

“T say,” whispered Fred Langdon, at length,
clutching my hand, “don’t you see things — out
there — in the dark?”
172 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

“Yes, yes — Binny Wallace’s face!”

I added to my own nervousness by making this
avowal ; though for the last ten minutes I had seen
little besides that star-pale face with its angelic
hair and brows. First a slim yellow circle, like
the nimbus round the moon, took shape and grew
sharp against the darkness; then this faded grad-
ually, and there was the Face, wearing the same
sad, sweet look it wore when he waved his hand to
us across the awful water. This optical illusion
kept repeating itself.

“And I too,” said Adams. ‘I see it every now
and then, outside there. What would n’t I give if
it really was poor little Wallace looking in at us!
O boys, how shall we dare to go back to the town
without him? I’ve wished a hundred times, since
we ’ve been sitting here, that I was in his place,
alive or dead !”

We dreaded the approach of morning as much
as we longed for it. The morning would tell us
all. Was it possible for the Dolphin to outride
such a storm? There was a lighthouse on Mack-
erel Reef, which lay directly in the course the boat
had taken when it disappeared. If the Dolphin
had caught on this reef, perhaps Binny Wallace
was safe. Perhaps his cries had been heard by the
keeper of the light. The man owned a life-boat,
and had rescued several persons. Who could tell?

Such were the questions we asked ourselves
again and again, as we lay in each other’s arms
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 173

J

waiting for daybreak. What an endless night it
was! I have known months that did not seem so
long.

Our position was irksome rather than perilous ;
for the day was certain to bring us relief from the
town, where our prolonged absence, together with
the storm, had no doubt excited the liveliest alarm
for our safety. But the cold, the darkness, and
the suspense were hard to bear.

Our soaked jackets had chilled us to the bone.
- To keep warm, we lay huddled together so closely
that we could hear our hearts beat above the tu-
mult of sea and sky.

After a while we grew very hungry, not having
broken our fast since early in the day. The rain
had turned the hard-tack intoa sort of dough; but
it was better than nothing.

We used to laugh at Fred Langdon for always
carrying in his pocket a small vial of essence of
peppermint or sassafras, a few drops of which,
sprinkled on a lump of loaf-sugar, he seemed to
consider a great luxury. I do not know what
would have become of us at this crisis if it had
not been for that omnipresent bottle of hot stuff.
We poured the stinging liquid over our sugar,
which had kept dry in a sardine-box, and warmed
ourselves with frequent doses.

After four or five hours the rain ceased, the
wind died away to a moan, and the sea—no
longer raging like a maniac — sobbed and sobbed
174 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

with a piteous human voice all along the coast.
And well it might, after that night’s work.
Twelve sail of the Gloucester fishing fleet had
gone down with every soul on board, just outside
of Whale’s-back Light. Think of the wide grief
that follows in the wake of one wreck; then think
of the despairing women who wrung their hands
and wept, the next morning, in the streets of
Gloucester, Marblehead, and Newcastle!

Though our strength was nearly spent, we were
too cold to sleep. Once I sunk into a troubled
doze, when I seemed to hear Charley Marden’s
parting words, only it was the Sea that said them.
After that I threw off the drowsiness whenever it
threatened to overcome me.

Fred Langdon was the earliest to discover a
filmy, luminous streak in the sky, the first glim-
mering of sunrise.

“Look, it is nearly daybreak!”

While we were following the direction of his
finger, a sound of distant oars fell upon our ears,

We listened breathlessly, and as the dip of the
blades became more audible, we discerned two
foggy lights, like will-o’-the-wisps, floating on the
river.

Running down to the water’s edge, we hailed
the boats with all our might. The call was heard,
for the oars rested a moment in the row-locks, and
then pulled in towards the island.

It was two boats from the town, in the foremost
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 175

of which we could now make out the figures of
Captain Nutter and Binny Wallace’s father. We
shrunk back on seeing “771.

“Thank God!” cried Mr. Wallace fervently, as
he leaped from the wherry without waiting for the
bow to touch the beach.

But when he saw only three boys standing on
the sands, his eye wandered restlessly about in
quest of the fourth; then a deadly pallor over-
spread his features.

Our story was soon told. A solemn silence fell
upon the crowd of rough boatmen gathered round,
interrupted only by astifled sob from one poor old
man, who stood apart from the rest.

The sea was still running too high for any small
boat to venture out; so it was arranged that the
wherry should take us back to town, leaving the
yawl, with a picked crew, to hug the island until
daybreak, and then set forth in search of the Dol-
phin. .

Though it was barely sunrise when we reached
town, there were a great many persons assembled
at the landing eager for intelligence from missing
boats. Two picnic parties had started down river
the day before, just previous to the gale, and no-
thing had been heard of them. It turned out that
the pleasure-seekers saw their danger in time, and
ran ashore on one of the least exposed islands,
where they passed the night. Shortly after our
own arrival they appeared off Rivermouth, much
176 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

to the joy of their friends, in two shattered, dis-
masted boats.

The excitement over, I was in a forlorn state,
physically and mentally. Captain Nutter put me
to bed between hot blankets, and sent Kitty Col-
lins for the doctor. I was wandering in my mind,
and fancied myself still on Sandpeep Island: now
we were building our brick stove to cook the chow-
der, and, in my delirium, I laughed aloud and
shouted to my comrades; now the sky darkened,
and the squall struck the island; now I gave
orders to Wallace how to manage the boat, and
now I cried because the rain was pouring in on
me through the holes in the tent. Towards even-
ing a high fever set in, and it was many days be-
fore my grandfather deemed it prudent to tell me
that the Dolphin had been found, floating keel up-
wards, four miles southeast of Mackerel Reef.

Poor little Binny Wallace! How strange it
seemed, when I went to school again, to see that
empty seat in the fifth row! How gloomy the play-
ground was, lacking the sunshine of his gentle,
sensitive face! One day a folded sheet slipped
from my algebra; it was the last note he ever
wrote me. I could not read it for the tears.

What a pang shot across my heart the after-
noon it was whispered through the town that a
body had been washed ashore at Grave Point —
the place where we bathed. We bathed there no
more! How well I remember the funeral, and
THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN 177

what a piteous sight it was afterwards to see his
familiar name on a small headstone in the Old
South Burying Ground !

Poor little Binny Wallace! Always the same
to me. The rest of us have grown up into hard,
worldly men, fighting the fight of life; but you are
forever young, and gentle, and pure ; a part of my
own childhood that time cannot wither; always a
little boy, always poor little Binny Wallace!
CHAPTER XV
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP

A year had stolen by since the death of Binny
Wallace —a year of which I have nothing impor-
tant to record.

The loss of our little playmate threw a shadow
over our young lives for many and many a month.
The Dolphin rose and fell with the tide at the foot
of the slippery steps, unused, the rest of the sum-
mer. At the close of November we hauled her
sadly into the boathouse for the winter; but when
spring came round we launched the Dolphin again,
and often went down to the wharf and looked at
her lying in the tangled eelgrass, without much
inclination to take a row. The associations con-
nected with the boat were too painful as yet;
but time, which wears the sharp edge from every-
thing, softened this feeling, and one afternoon we
brought out the cobwebbed oars.

The ice once broken, brief trips along the
wharves— we seldom cared to go out into the
river now — became one of our chief amusements.
Meanwhile Gypsy was not forgotten. Every clear
morning I was in the saddle before breakfast, and
there are few roads or lanes within ten miles of
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP 179

Rivermouth that have not borne the print of her
vagrant hoof.

I studied like a good fellow this quarter, carry-
ing off a couple of first prizes. The Captain ex-
pressed his gratification by presenting me with
a new silver dollar. If a dollar in his eyes was
smaller than a cart-wheel, it was not so very much
smaller. I redeemed my pencil-case from the
treasurer of the Centipedes, and felt that I was
getting on in the world

It was at this time I was greatly cast down by
a letter from my father saying that he should be
unable to visit Rivermouth until the following
year. With that letter came another to Captain
Nutter, which he did not read aloud to the fam-
ily, as usual. It was on business, he said, folding
it up in his wallet. He received several of these
business letters from time to time, and I noticed
that they always made him silent and moody.

The fact is my father’s banking-house was not
thriving. The unlooked-for failure of a firm largely
indebted to him had crippled “the house.” When
the Captain imparted this information to me I did
not trouble myself over the matter. I supposed —
if I supposed anything — that all grown-up people
had more or less money, when they wanted it.
Whether they inherited it, or whether government
supplied them, was not clear to me. A loose idea
that my father had a private gold-mine somewhere
or other relieved me of all uneasiness.
180 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

I was not far from right. Every man has within
himself a gold-mine whose riches are limited only
by his own industry. It is true, it sometimes
happens that industry does not avail, if a man
lacks that something which, for want of a better
name, we call luck. My father was a person of
untiring energy and ability ; but he had no luck.
To use a Rivermouth saying, he was always
catching sculpins when every one else with the
same bait was catching mackerel.

It was more than two years since I had seen
my parents. I felt that I could not bear a longer
separation. Every letter from New Orleans — we
got two or three a month — gave me a fit of home-
sickness ; and when it was definitely settled that
my father and mother were to remain in the South
another twelvemonth, I resolved to go to them.

Since Binny Wallace’s death, Pepper Whitcomb
had been my jfidus Achates; we occupied desks
near each other at school, and were always. to-
getherin play hours. Weriggeda twine telegraph
from his garret window to the scuttle of the Nut-
ter House, and sent messages to each other in a
match-box, We shared our pocket-money and our
secrets — those amazing secrets which boys have.
We met in lonely places by stealth, and parted like
conspirators ; we could not buy a jackknife or build
a kite without throwing an air of mystery and
guilt over the transaction.

I naturally hastened to lay my New Orleans
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP 181

project before Pepper Whitcomb, having dragged
him for that purpose to a secluded spot in the
dark pine woods outside the town. Pepper lis-
tened to me with a gravity which he will not be



The Telegraph

able to surpass when he becomes Chief Justice,
and strongly advised me to go.

“The summer vacation,’ said Pepper, “lasts
six weeks ; that will give you a fortnight to spend
in New Orleans, allowing two weeks each way for
the journey.”

I wrung his hand and begged him to accompany
me, offering to defray all the expenses. I was no-
thing if I was not princely in those days. After
considerable urging, he consented to go on terms
so liberal. The whole thing was arranged ; there
was nothing to do now but to advise Captain Nut-
ter of my plan, which I did the next day.
182 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

The possibility that he might oppose the tour
never entered my head. I was therefore totally
unprepared for the vigorous negative which met
my proposal. I was deeply mortified, moreover,
for there was Pepper Whitcomb on the wharf, at
the foot of the street, waiting for me to come and
let him know what day we were to start.

“Go to New Orleans? Go to Jericho!” ex-
claimed Captain Nutter. ‘“ You’dlook pretty, you
two, philandering off, like the babes in the wood,
twenty-five hundred miles, ‘with all the world be-
fore you where to choose’!”

And the Captain’s features, which had worn an
indignant air as he began the sentence, relaxed
into a broad smile. Whether it was at the felicity
of his own quotation, or at the mental picture he
drew of Pepper and myself on our travels, I could
not tell, and little cared. I was heart-broken.
How could I face my chum after all the dazzling
inducements I had held out to him ?

My grandfather, seeing that I took the matter
seriously, pointed out the difficulties of such a
journey and the great expense involved. He en-
tered into the details of my father’s money trou-
bles, and succeeded in making it plain to me that
my wishes, under the circumstances, were some-
what unreasonable. It was in no cheerful mood
that I joined Pepper at the end of the wharf.

I found that young gentleman leaning against
the bulkhead gazing intently towards the islands
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP 183

in the harbor. He had formed a telescope of his
hands, and was so occupied with his observations
as to be oblivious of my approach.

“Hullo!” cried Pepper, dropping his hands.
“Look there! isn’t that a bark coming up the
Narrows ?”

“Where?”

“Just at the left of Fishcrate Island. Don’t
you see the foremast peeping above the old der-
rick?”

Sure enough, it was a vessel of considerable size,
slowly beating up to town. In a few moments
more the other two masts were visible above the
green hillocks.

“Fore-topmasts blown away,” said Pepper.
“ Putting in for repairs, I guess.”

As the bark lazily crept from behind the last of
the islands, she let go her anchors and swung
round with the tide. Then the gleeful chant of
the sailors at the capstan came to us pleasantly
across the water. The vessel lay within three
quarters of a mile of us, and we could plainly see
the men at the davits lowering the starboard
long-boat. It no sooner touched the stream than
a dozen of the crew scrambled like mice over the
side of the merchantman.

In a neglected seaport like Rivermouth the ar-
rival of a large ship is an event of moment. The
prospect of having twenty or thirty jolly tars let
loose on the peaceful town excites divers emo-
184 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

tions among the inhabitants. The small shop-
keepers along the wharves anticipate a thriving
trade; the proprietors of the two rival boarding-
houses —the “ Wee Drop” and the “ Mariner’s
Home” —hasten down to the landing to secure
lodgers; and the female population of Anchor
Lane turn out to a woman, for a ship fresh from
sea is always full of possible husbands and long-
lost. prodigal sons.

But aside from this there is scant welcome
given to a ship’s crew in Rivermouth. The toil-
worn mariner is a
sad fellow ashore,
judging him by
a severe moral
standard.

Once,: I re-
member, a Unit-
ed States frigate
came into port for
repairs after a
storm. She lay
in the river a fort-
night or more,
and every day
sent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our country’s
gallant defenders, who spread themselves over the
town, doing all sorts of mad things. They were
good-natured enough, but full of old Sancho.
The “Wee Drop” proved a drop too much for



A Midnight Call
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP 185

many of them. They went singing through the
streets at midnight, wringing off door-knockers,
shinning up water-spouts, and frightening the Old-
est Inhabitant nearly to death by popping their
heads into his second-story window, and shouting
“Fire!” One morning a blue-jacket was discov-
ered in a perilous plight, half way up the steeple
of the South Church, clinging to the lightning-rod.
How he got there nobody could tell, not even blue-
jacket himself. All he knew was, that the leg of
his trousers had caught on a nail, and there he
stuck, unable to move either way. It cost the
town five or six dollars to get him down again. He
directed the workmen how to splice the ladders
brought to his assistance, and called his rescuers
“butter-fingered land-lubbers” with delicious cool-
ness.

But those were man-of-war’s men. The sedate-
looking craft now lying off Fishcrate Island was
not likely to carry any such lively cargo. Never-
theless, we watched the coming in of the long-
boat with considerable interest.

As it drew near, the figure of the man pulling
the bow-oar seemed oddly familiar to me. Where
could I have seen him before? When and where?
His back was towards me, but there was some-
thing about that closely cropped head that I rec-
ognized instantly.

“Way enough!” criéd the steersman, and all
the oars stood upright in the air. The man in
186 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the bow seized the boat-hook, and, turning round
quickly, showed me the honest face of Sailor Ben
of the Typhoon.

“It’s Sailor Ben!” I cried, nearly pushing Pep-
per Whitcomb overboard in my excitement.

Sailor Ben, with the wonderful pink lady on his
arm, and the ships and stars and anchors tattooed
all over him, was a well-known hero among my
playmates. And there he was, like something in
a dream come true!

I did not wait for my old acquaintance to get
firmly on the wharf, before I grasped his hand in
both of mine.

“Sailor Ben, don’t you remember me?”

He evidently did not. He shifted his quid
from one cheek to the other, and looked at me
meditatively.

“Lord love ye, lad, I don’t know you. I was
never here afore in my life.”

“What!” I cried, enjoying his perplexity,
“have you forgotten the voyage from New Or-
leans in the Typhoon, two years ago, you lovely
old picture-book ?”

Ah! then he knew me, and in token of the rec-
ollection gave my hand such a squeeze that I am
sure an unpleasant change came over my coun-
tenance.

“Bless my eyes, but you have growed! I should
n’t have knowed you if I had met you in Singa-
pore!”
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP 187

Without stopping to inquire, as I was tempted
to do, why he was more likely to recognize me in
Singapore than anywhere else, I invited him to
come at once up to the Nutter House, where I in-
sured him a warm welcome from the Captain.

“Fold steady, Master Tom,” said Sailor Ben,
slipping the painter through the ringbolt and tying
the loveliest knot you ever saw ; “hold steady till
I see if the mate can let me off. If you please,
sir,” he continued, addressing the steersman, a
very red-faced, bow-legged person, “this here is a
little shipmate o’ mine as wants to talk over back
times along of me, if so it ’s convenient.”

“All right, Ben,” returned the mate; “shan’t
want you for an hour.”

Leaving one man in charge of the boat, the
mate and the rest of the crew went off together.
In the mean while Pepper Whitcomb had got out
his cunner line, and was quietly fishing at the end
of the wharf, as if to give me the idea that he was
not very much impressed by my intimacy with so
renowned a character as Sailor Ben. Perhaps
Pepper was a little jealous. At any rate, he re-
fused to go with us to the house.

Captain Nutter was at home reading the River-
mouth Barnacle. He was a reader to do an editor’s
heart good; he never skipped over an advertise-
ment, even if he had read it fifty times before.
Then the paper went the rounds of the neighbor-
hood, among the poor people, like the single port-
188 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

able eye which the three blind crones passed to
each other in the legend of King Acrisius. The
Captain, I repeat, was wandering in the labyrinths
of the Rivermouth Barnacle when I led Sailor Ben
into the sitting-room.

My grandfather, whose inborn courtesy knew
no distinctions, received my nautical friend as if
he had been an admiral instead of a common fore-
castle-hand. Sailor Ben pulled an imaginary tuft
of hair on his forehead, and bowed clumsily. Sail-
ors have a way of using their forelock as a sort of
handle to bow with.

The old tar had probably never been in so hand-
some an apartment in all his days, and nothing
could induce him to take the inviting mahogany
chair which the Captain wheeled out from the cor-
ner.

The abashed mariner stood up against the wall,
twirling his tarpaulin in his two hands and looking
extremely silly. He made a poor show in a gen-
tleman’s drawing-room, but what a fellow he had
been in his day, when the gale blew great guns
and the topsails wanted reefing! I thought of
him with the Mexican squadron off Vera Cruz,
where

“The rushing battle-bolt sung from the three-decker out of the
foam,”

and he did not seem awkward or ignoble to me, for
all his shyness.
As Sailor Ben declined to sit down, the Captain
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP 189

did not resume his seat ; so we three stood in a
constrained manner until my grandfather went to
the door and called to Kitty to bring in a decan-
ter of madeira and two glasses.

“My grandson, here, has talked so much about























Introducing Sailor Ben

you,” said the. Captain pleasantly, “that you seem
quite like an old acquaintance to me.”

“ Thankee, sir, thankee,” returned Sailor Ben,
looking as guilty as if he had been detected in
picking a pocket.
190 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

“And I’m very glad to see you, Mr. —Mr.—”’

“ Watson — Benjamin Watson.”

“Mr. Watson,” added the Captain. ‘Tom, open
the door, there’s Kitty with the glasses.”

I opened the door, and Kitty entered the room
bringing the things on a waiter, which she was
about to set on the table, when suddenly she ut-
tered a loud shriek; the decanter and glasses fell
with a crash to the floor, and Kitty, as white as a
sheet, was seen flying through the hall.

“Tt’s his wraith! It’s his wraith!!” we heard
Kitty shrieking, in the kitchen.

My grandfather and I turned with amazement
to Sailor Ben. His eyes were standing out of his
head like a lobster’s.

“Tt’s my own little Irish lass!” shouted the
sailor, and he darted into the hall after her.

Even then we scarcely caught the meaning of
his words, but when we saw Watson and Kitty
sobbing on each other’s shoulder in the kitchen,
we understood it all.

“T bégs your honor’s parden, sir,” he said, lift-
ing his tear-stained face above Kitty’s tumbled
hair ; “I begs your honor’s parden for kicking up
a rumpus in the house, but it’s my own little
Irish lass as I lost so long ago !”

“ Heaven preserve us !”’ cried the Captain, blow-
ing his nose violently —a transparent ruse to hide
his emotion.

1 Ghost, spirit.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP IgI

Miss Abigail was in an upper chamber, sweep-
ing ; but on hearing the unusual racket below, she
scented an accident and came ambling downstairs
with a bottle of the infallible hot-drops in her hand.
Nothing but the firmness of my grandfather pre-
vented her from giving Sailor Ben a tablespoon-
ful on the spot. But when she learned what had
come about — that this was Kitty's husband, that
Kitty Collins was not Kitty Collins now, but Mrs.
Benjamin Watson of Nantucket —the good soul
sat down on the meal-chest and sobbed as if — to
quote from Captain Nutter —as if a husband of
her own had turned up!

A happier set of persons than we were never
met together in a dingy kitchen or anywhere else.
The Captain ordered a fresh decanter of madeira,
and made all hands, excepting myself, drink a cup
to the return of “the prodigal sea-son,” as he
called Sailor Ben.

After the first flush of joy and surprise was over,
Kitty grew silent and constrained. Now and then
she fixed her eyes thoughtfully on her husband.
Why had he deserted her all these long years?
What right had he to look for a welcome from
one he had treated so cruelly? She had been
true to him, but had he been trueto her? Sailor
Ben must have guessed what was passing in her
mind, for presently he took her hand and said, —

“ Well, lass, it’s a long yarn, but you shall have
it all in good time. It was my hard luck as made
192 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

us part company, an’ no will of mine, for I loved
you dear.”

Kitty brightened up immediately, needing no
other assurance of Sailor Ben’s faithfulness.

When his hour had expired, we walked with
him down to the wharf, where the Captain held a
consultation with the mate, which resulted in an
extension of Mr. Watson’s leave of absence, and
afterwards in his discharge from his ship. We
then went to the “ Mariner's Home” to engage a
room for him, as he would not hear of accepting
the hospitalities of the Nutter House.

“You see, I’m only an uneddicated man,” he
remarked to my grandfather, by way of explana-
tion
CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN

OF course we were all very curious to learn what
-had befallen Sailor Ben that morning long ago,

when he bade his little bride good-by and disap-
peared so mysteriously.

After tea, that same evening, we assembled
around the table in the kitchen —the only place
where Sailor Ben felt at home —to hear what he
had to say for himself.

The candles were snuffed, and a pitcher of foam-
ing nut-brown ale was set at the elbow of the
speaker, who was evidently embarrassed by the re-
spectability of his audience, consisting of Captain
Nutter, Miss Abigail, myself, and Kitty, whose
face shone with happiness like one of the pol-
ished tin platters on the dresser.

“Well, my hearties,”’ commenced Sailor Ben —
then he stopped short and turned very red, as it
struck him that maybe this was not quite the
proper way to address a dignitary like the Captain _
and a severe elderly lady like Miss Abigail Nutter,
who sat bolt upright staring at him as she would
have stared at the Tycoon of Japan himself.

“T ain't much of a hand at spinnin’ a yarn,”
194 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

remarked Sailor Ben, apologetically, “specially
when the yarn is all about a man as has made a
fool of hisself, an’ ’specially when that man’s name
is Benjamin Watson.”

“Bravo!” cried Captain Nutter, rapping on the
table encouragingly.

“Thankee, sir, thankee. I go back to the time
when Kitty an’ me was livin’ in lodgin’s by the
dock in New York. We was as happy, sir, as two
porpusses, which they toil not neither do they
spin. But when I seed the money gittin’ low in
the locker — Kitty’s starboard stockin’, savin’ your
presence, marm —I got down-hearted like, seein’
as I should be obleeged to skip agin, for it did n’t
seem as I could do much ashore. An’ then the
sea was my nat’ral spear of action. I was n’t ex-
actly born on it, look you, but I fell into it the fust
time I was let out arter my birth. My mother
slipped her cable for a heavenly port afore I was
old enough to hail her; so I larnt to look on the
ocean for a sort of stepmother — an’ a precious
hard one she has been to me.

“The idee of leavin’ Kitty so soon arter our
marriage went agin my grain considerable. I
cruised along the docks for somethin’ to do in the
way of stevedore ; an’ though I picked up a stray
job here and there, I did n’t arn enough to buy
ship-bisket for a rat, let alone feedin’ two human
mouths. There was n’t nothin’ honest I would n't
have turned a hand to; but the ’longshoremen
IN WHICH SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN 195

gobbled up all the work, an’ a outsider like me
did n’t stand a show. .

“Things got from bad to worse; the month’s
rent took all our cash except a dollar or so, an’ the
sky looked kind 0’ squally fore an’ aft. Well, I
set out one mornin’ — that identical unlucky morn-
in’ —determined to come back an’ toss some pay
into Kitty’s lap, if I had to sell my jacket for it.
I spied a brig unloadin’ coal at pier No. 47 —how
well I remembers it! I hailed the mate, an’ of-
fered myself for a coal-heaver. But I was n’t
wanted, as he told me civilly enough, which was
better treatment than usual. As I turned off
rather glum I was signaled by one of them sleek,
smooth-spoken rascals with a white hat an’ a weed
on it, as is always goin’ about the piers a-seekin’
who they may devower.

“We sailors know ’em for rascals from stem to
starn, but somehow every fresh one fleeces us jest
as his mate did afore him. We don’t larn nothin’
by exper’ence; we’re jest no better than a lot of
babbys with no brains.

“*Good-mornin’, my man,’ sez the chap, as iley
as you please.

“© ¢ Mornin’, sir,’ sez I.

“¢Tookin’ for a job?’ sez he.

“«Through the big end of a telescope,’ sez I -—
meanin’ that the chances for a job looked very
small from my pint of view.

“«VYou ’re the man for my money,’ sez he
196 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

smilin’ as innocent as a cherubim ; ‘jest step in
here, till we talk it over.’

“So I goes with him like a nat’ral-born idiot,
into a little grocery-shop near by, where we sets
down at a table with a bottle atween us. Then it
comes out as there is a New Bedford whaler about



“ Lookin’ for a job?”

to start for the fishin’ grounds, an’ jest one able-
bodied sailor like me is wanted to make up the
crew. Would I go? Yes, I would n’t on no
terms.

“<«T ll bet you fifty dollars,’ sez he, ‘that you ’ll
come back fust mate.’

««T ll bet you a hundred,’ sez I, ‘that I don’t,
IN WHICH SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN 197

for I ’ve signed papers as keeps me ashore, an’ the
parson has witnessed the deed.’

“So we sat there, he urgin’ me to ship, an’ I
chaffin’ him cheerful over the bottle.

“Arter a while I begun to feel a little queer ;
things got foggy in-my upper works, an’ I remem-
bers, faintlike, of signin’ a paper; then I remem.
bers bein’ in a small boat; and then I remembers
nothin’ until I heard the mate’s whistle pipin’
all hands on deck. I tumbled up with the rest,
an’ there I was —on board of a whaler outward
bound for a three years’ cruise, an’ my dear little
lass ashore awaitin’ for me.”

“Miserable wretch!” said Miss Abigail, in a
voice that vibrated among the tin platters on the
dresser. This was Miss Abigail’s way of testify-
ing her sympathy.

“ Thankee, marm,’
fully.

“No talking to the man at the wheel,” cried the
Captain. Upon which we all laughed. “Spin!”
added my grandfather.

Sailor Ben resumed : —

“T leave you to guess the wretchedness as fell
upon me, for I ’ve not got the gift to tell you.
There I was down on the ship’s books for a three
years’ viage, an’ no help for it. I feel nigh to six
hundred years old when I think how long that
viage was. There isn’t no hour-glass as runs slow
enough to keep a tally of the slowness of them

’

returned Sailor Ben doubt-
19S THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

fust hours. But I done my duty like a man, seein’
there was n’t no way of gettin’ out of it. I told
my shipmates of the trick as had been played on
me, an’ they tried to cheer me up a bit; but I was
sore sorrowful for a long spell. Many a night on
watch I put my face in my hands and sobbed for
thinkin’ of the little woman left among the land-
sharks, an’ no man to have an eye on her, God
bless her!”

Here Kitty softly drew her chair nearer to
Sailor Ben, and rested one hand on his arm.

“Our adventures among the whales, I take it,
does n’t consarn the present company here assem-
bled. SolI give that the go by. There ’s an end
to everythin’, even toa whalin’ viage. My heart
all but choked me the day we put into New Bed-
ford with our cargo of ile. I got my three years’
pay in a lump, an’ made for New York like a
flash of lightnin’. The people hove to and looked
at me, as I rushed through the streets like a mad-
man, until I came to the spot where the lodgin’-
house stood on West Street. But, Lord love ye,
there was no sech lodgin’-house there, but a great
new brick shop.

“JT made bold to go in an’ ask arter the old
place, but nobody knowed nothin’ about it, save as
it had been torn down two years or more. I was
adrift now, for I had reckoned all them days and
nights on gittin’ word of Kitty from Dan Shack.
ford, the man as kept the lodgin’.
IN WHICII SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN — 199

“As I stood there with all the wind knocked
out of my sails, the idee of runnin’ alongside the
perlice-station popped into my head. The perlice
was likely to know the latitude of a man like Dan






a
SS

Ss
SS
te

ee



.

Settling the Land Sharks Account

Shackford who was n’t over an’ above respeck-
tible. They did know —he had died in the
Tombs jail that day twelvemonth. A coincy-
dunce, wasn’t it? I was ready to drop when
they told me this ; howsomever, I bore up an’ give
the chief a notion of the fix I was in. He writ a
notice which I put into the newspapers every day
200 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

for three months; but nothin’ come of it. I
cruised over the city week in and week out; I
went to every sort of place where they hired wo-
men hands; I didn’t leave a think undone that
a uneddicated man could do. But nothin’ come
of it. I don’t believe there was a wretcheder
soul in that big city of wretchedness than me.
Sometimes I wanted to lay down in the streets
and die.

“Driftin’ disconsolate one day among the ship-
pin’, who should I overhaul but the identical
smooth-spoken chap with a white hat an’ a weed
on it! I didn’t know if there was any sperit left
in me, tillI clapped eye on his very onpleasant
countenance. ‘You villain!’ sez I, ‘where’s my
little Irish lass as you dragged me away from ?’
an’ I lighted on him, hat and all, like that!”

Here Sailor Ben brought his fist down on the
deal table with the force of a sledge-hammer.
Miss Abigail gave a start, and the ale leaped up
in the pitcher like a miniature fountain.

“T begs your parden, ladies and gentlemen;
but the thought of that feller with his ring an’
his watch-chain an’ his walrus face is alus too
many for me. I was for pitchin’ him into the
North River, when a perliceman prevented me
from benefitin’ the human family. I had to pay
five dollars for hitin’ the chap (they said it was salt
and buttery), an’ that ’s what I call a neat, genteel
luxury. It was worth double the money jest to
IN WHICH SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN 201

' see that white hat, with a weed on it, layin’ on the
wharf like a busted accordiun.

“ Arter months of useless sarch, I went to sea
agin. I never got into a foren port but I kept a
watch out for Kitty. Once I thought I seed her
in Liverpool, but it was only a gal as looked like
her. The numbers of women in different parts of
the world as looked like her was amazin’. So a
good many years crawled by, an’ I wandered from
place to place, never givin’ up the sarch. I might
have been chief mate scores of times, maybe
master; but I had n’t no ambition. I seed many
strange things in them years — outlandish people
an’ cities, storms, shipwracks, an’ battles. I seed
many a true mate go down, an’ sometimes I en-
vied them what went to their rest. But these
things is neither here nor there.

“ About a year ago I shipped on board the Bel-
phoebe yonder, an’ of all the strange winds as ever
blowed, the strangest an’ the best was the wind
as blowed me to this here blessed spot. I can’t be
too thankful. That I’m as thankful as it is pos-
sible for an uneddicated man to be, He knows as
reads the heart of all.”

Here ended Sailor Ben’s yarn, which I have
written down in his own homely words as nearly
as Ican recall them. After he had finished, the
Captain shook hands with him and served out the
ale.

As Kitty was about to drink, she paused, rested
202 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the cup on her knee, and asked what day of the
month it was.

“The twenty-seventh,” said the Captain, won-
dering what she was driving at.

“Then,” cried Kitty, “it’s ten years and a day
this night sence’? —

“Since what ?” asked my grandfather.

“Sence the little woman and I got spliced!”
cried Sailor Ben. “There ’s another coincydunce
for you, if you ’re wanting anything in that line.”

On hearing this we all clapped hands, and the
Captain, with a degree of ceremony that was al-
most painful, drank a bumper to the health and
happiness of the bride and bridegroom.

It was a pleasant sight to see the two old lovers
sitting side by side, in spite of all, drinking from
the same little cup —a battered zinc dipper which
Sailor Ben had unslung from a strap round his
waist. I think I never saw him without this dip-
per and a sheath-knife suspended just back of his
hip, ready for any convivial occasion.

We hada merry time of it. The Captain was
in great force this evening, and not only related his
famous exploit in the war of 1812, but regaled the
company with a dashing sea-song from Mr. Shake-
speare’s play of The Tempest. My grandfather
— however it came about — was a great reader of
Shakespeare. He had a meilow tenor voice (not
Shakespeare, but the Captain), and rolled out the
verse with a will:
IN WHICH SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN 203

“The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,
The gunner, and his mate,
Lov’d Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,
But none of us car’d for Kate.”

“A very good song, and very well sung,” says
Sailor Ben; “but some of us does care for Kate.
Is this Mr. Shawkspear a sea-farin’ man, sir?”

“Not at present,” replied the Captain, with a
monstrous twinkle in his eye.

The clock was striking ten when the party
broke up. The Captain walked to the “ Mariner’s
Home” with his guest, in order to question him
regarding his future movements.

“Well, sir,” said he, “I ain’t as young as I was,
an’ I don’t cal’ulate to go to sea no more. I pro-
poses to drop anchor here, an’ hug the land until
the old hulk goes to pieces. I’ve got two or
three thousand dollars in the locker, an’ expects
to get on uncommon comfortable without askin’
no odds from the Assylum for Decayed Mariners.”

My grandfather indorsed the plan warmly, and
Benjamin Watson did drop anchor in Rivermouth,
where he speedily became one of the institutions of
the town.

His first step was to buy a small one-story cot-
tage located at the head of the wharf, within gun-
shot of the Nutter House. To the great amuse-
ment of my grandfather, Sailor Ben painted the
cottage a light sky-blue, and ran a broad _ black
stripe around it just under the eaves. In this
204 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

stripe he painted white port-holes, at regular dis-
tances, making his residence look as much like a
man-of-war as possible. With a short flagstaff pro-
jecting over the door like a bowsprit, the effect
was quite magical. My description of the exte-
rior of this palatial residence is complete when I
add that the proprietor nailed a horseshoe against
the front door to keep off the witches —a very
necessary precaution in these latitudes.

The inside of Sailor Ben’s abode was not less
striking than the outside. The cottage contained
two rooms; the one opening on the wharf he
called his cabin; here he ate and slept. His few
tumblers and a frugal collection of crockery were
set in a rack suspended over the table, which had
a cleat of wood nailed round the edge to prevent
the dishes from sliding off in case of a heavy sea.
Hanging against the walls were three or four
highly colored prints of celebrated frigates, and a
lithograph picture of a rosy young woman insuffi-
ciently clad in the American flag. This was la-
beled “Kitty,” though I am sure it looked no
more like her than I did. A walrus-tooth with an
Esquimau engraved on it, a shark’s jaw, and the
blade of a swordfish were among the enviable dec-
orations of this apartment. In one corner stood
his bunk, or bed, and in the other his well-worn
sea-chest, a perfect Pandora’s box of mysteries.
You would have thought yourself in the cabin of
a real ship.


In the Cabin
IN WHICH SAILOR BEN SPINS A YARN 207

The little room aft, separated from the cabin by
a sliding door, was the caboose. It held a cook-
ing-stove, pots, pans, and groceries ; also a lot of
fishing-lines and coils of tarred twine, which made
the place smell like a forecastle, and a delightful
smell it is — to those who fancy it.

Kitty did not leave our service, but played house-
keeper for both establishments, returning at night
to Sailor Ben’s. He shortly added a wherry to
his worldly goods, and in the fishing season made
a very handsome income. During the winter he
employed himself manufacturing crab-nets, for
which he found no lack of customers.

His popularity among the boys was immense.
A jackknife in his expert hand was a whole chest
of tools. He could whittle out anything from a
wooden chain to a Chinese pagoda, or a full-rigged
seventy-four a foot long. To own a ship of Sailor
Ben’s building was to be exalted above your fellow-
creatures. He did not carve many, and those he
refused to sell, choosing to present them to his
young friends, of whom Tom Bailey, you may be
sure, was one.

How delightful it was of winter nights to sit in
his cosy cabin, close to the ship’s stove (he would
never hear of having a fireplace), and listen to
Sailor Ben’s yarns! In the early summer twi-
lights, when he sat on the door-step splicing a
rope or mending a net, he always hada bevy of
blooming young faces alongside.
208 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

The dear old fellow! How tenderly the years
touched him after this !—all the more tenderly, it
seemed, for having roughed him so cruelly in
other days.


CHAPTER XVII
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH

SAILOR BEn’s arrival partly drove the New Or-
leans project from my brain. Besides, there was
just then a certain movement on foot by the Cen-
tipede Club which helped to engross my attention.

Pepper Whitcomb took the Captain’s veto phil-
osophically, observing that he thought from the
first the governor would not let me go. Ido not
think Pepper was quite honest in that.

But to the subject in hand.

Among the few changes that have taken place
in Rivermouth during the past twenty years there
is one which I regret. I lament the removal of
all those varnished iron cannon which used to do
duty as posts at the corners of streets leading
from the river. They were quaintly ornamental,
each set upon end with a solid shot soldered into
its mouth, and gave to that part of the town a pic-
turesqueness very poorly atoned for by the con-
ventional wooden stakes that have deposed them.

These guns (‘old sogers ” the boys called them)
had their story, like everything else in River-
mouth. When that everlasting last war — the war
of 1812, I mean—came to an end, all the brigs,
210 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

schooners, and barks fitted out at this port as pri-
vateers were as eager to get rid of their useless
twelve-pounders and swivels as they had pre-
viously been to obtain them. Many of the pieces
had cost large sums, and now they were little bet-
ter than so much crude iron — not so good, in fact,
for they were clumsy things to break up and melt
over. The government did not want them; pri-
vate citizens did not want them; they were a drug
in the market.

But there was one man, ridiculous beyond his
generation, who got it into his head that a fortune
was to be made out of these same guns. To buy
them all, to hold on to them until war was declared
again (as he had no doubt it would be in a few
months), and then sell out at fabulous prices —
this was the daring idea that addled the pate of
Silas Trefethen, “Dealer in E. & W. I. Goods
and Groceries,” as the faded sign over his shop-
door informed the public.

Silas went shrewdly to work, buying up every
old cannon he could lay hands on. His back yard
was soon crowded with broken-down gun-car-
riages, and his barn with guns, like an arsenal.
When Silas’s purpose got wind it was astonishing
how valuable that thing became which just now
was worth nothing at all.

“Ha, ha!” thought Silas ; “somebody else is
tryin’ tu git control of the market. But I guess
I’ve got the start of Az.”
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 211

So he went on buying and buying, oftentimes
paying double the original price of the article.
People in the neighboring towns collected all the
worthless ordnance they could find, and sent it by
the cart-load to Rivermouth.

When his barn was full, Silas began piling the
rubbish in his cellar, then in his parlor. He
mortgaged the stock of his grocery-store, mort-
gaged his house, his barn, his horse, and would
have mortgaged himself if any one would have
taken him as security, in order to carry on the
grand speculation. He was a ruined man, and as
happy as a lark.

Surely poor Silas was cracked, like the majority
of his own cannon. More or less crazy he must
have been always. Years before this he pur-
chased an elegant rosewood coffin, and kept it in
one of the spare rooms in his residence. He
even had his name engraved on the silver-plate,
leaving a blank after the word “ Died.”

The blank was filled up in due time, and well it
was for Silas that he secured so stylish a coffin in
his opulent days, for when he died his worldly
wealth would not have bought him a pine box, to
say nothing of rosewood. He never gave up ex-
pecting a war with Great Britain. Hopeful and
radiant to the last, his dying words were, England
— war — few days — great profits !

It was that sweet old lady, Dame Jocelyn, who
told me the story of Silas Trefethen ; for these


212 _ THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

things happened long before my day. Silas died
in 1817.

At Trefethen’s death his unique collection came
under the auctioneer’s hammer. Some of the
larger guns were sold to the town, and planted at _
the corners of divers streets; others went off to
the iron-foundry; the balance, numbering twelve,
were dumped down on a deserted wharf at the
foot of Anchor Lane, where, summer after sum-
mer, they rested at their ease in the grass and
fungi, pelted in autumn by the rain and annu-
ally buried by the winter snow. It is with these
twelve guns that our story has to deal.

The wharf where they reposed was shut off
from the street by a high fence —a silent, dreamy
old wharf, covered with strange weeds and mosses.
On account of its seclusion and the good fishing
it afforded, it was much frequented by us boys.

There we met many an afternoon to throw out
our lines, or play leap-frog among the rusty can-
non. They were famous fellows in our eyes.
What a racket they had made in the heyday of
their unchastened youth! What stories they
might tell now, if their puffy metallic lips could
only speak! Once they were lively talkers
enough; but there the grim sea-dogs lay, silent
and forlorn in spite of all their former growlings.

They always seemed to me like a lot of vener-
able disabled tars, stretched out on a Jawn in front
of a hospital, gazing seaward, and mutely lament-
ing their lost youth.
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 213

But once more they were destined to lift up
their dolorous voices—once more they keeled
over and lay speechless for all time. And this
is how it befell.

Jack Harris, Charley Marden, Harry Blake, and
myself were fishing off the wharf one afternoon,
when a thought flashed upon me like an inspira-
tion.

“T say, boys!” I cried, hauling in my line hand
over hand, “I’ve got something!”

“What does it pull like, youngster?” asked
Harris, looking down at the taut line and expect-
ing to see a big perch at least.

“Oh, nothing in the fish way,” I returned,
laughing ; “it’s about the old guns.”

“ What about them?”

“I was thinking what jolly fun it would be to
set one of the old sogers on his legs and serve
him out a ration of gunpowder.”

Up came the three lines ina jiffy. An enter-
prise better suited to the disposition of my com-
panions could not have been proposed.

In a short time we had one of the smaller can-
non over on its back and were busy scraping the
green rust from the touch-hole. The mould had
spiked the gun so effectually, that for a while we
fancied we should have to give up our attempt to
resuscitate the old soger.

“A long gimlet would clear it out,” said Char-
ley Marden, “if we only had one.”
214 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY



Cleaning Her Out

I looked to see if Sailor Ben’s flag was flying at
the cabin door, for he always took in the colors
when he went off fishing.

“When you want to know if the Admiral’s
aboard, jest cast an eye to the buntin’, my heart-
ies,” says Sailor Ben.

Sometimes in a jocose mood he called himself
the Admiral, and I am sure he deserved to be one.
The Admiral’s flag was flying, and I-soon pro-
cured a gimlet from his carefully kept tool-chest.

Before long we had the gun in working order.
A newspaper lashed to the end of a lath served as
a swab to dust out the bore. Jack Harris blew
through the touch-hole and pronounced all clear.
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 255

Seeing our task accomplished so easily, we
turned our attention to the other guns, which lay
in all sorts of postures in the rank grass. Bor-
rowing a rope from Sailor Ben, we managed with
immense labor to drag the heavy pieces into posi-
tion and place a brick under each muzzle to give it
the proper elevation. When we beheld them all
in a row, like a regular battery, we simultaneously
conceived an idea, the magnitude of which struck
us dumb for a moment.

Our first intention was to load and fire a single
gun. How feeble and insignificant was such a
plan compared to that which now sent the light
dancing into our eyes!

“What could we have been thinking of?”
cried Jack Harris. ‘We'll give ’em a broadside,
to be sure, if we die for it!”

We turned to with a will, and before nightfall
had nearly half the battery overhauled and ready
for service. To keep the artillery dry we stuffed
wads of loose hemp into the muzzles, and fitted
wooden pegs to the touch-holes.

At recess the next noon the Centipedes met in
a corner of the school-yard to talk over the pro-
posed lark. The original projectors, though they
would have liked to keep the thing secret, ‘were
obliged to make a club matter of it, inasmuch as
funds were required for ammunition. There had
been no recent drain on the treasury, and the so-
ciety could well afford to spend a few dollars in so
notable an undertaking.

”
216 . THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

It was unanimously agreed that the plan should
be carried out in the handsomest manner, anda
' subscription to that end was taken on the spot.
. Several of the Centipedes had n’t a cent, excepting
the one strung around their necks ; others, how-
ever, were richer. JI chanced to have a dollar,
and it went into the cap quicker than lightning.
When the club, in view of my munificence, voted
. to name the guns Bailey’s Battery, I was prouder
than I have ever been since over anything.

The money thus raised, added to that already in
the treasury, amounted to nine dollars —a_for-
tune in those days; but not more than we had use
for. This sum was divided into twelve parts, for
it would not do for one boy to buy all the powder,
nor even for us all to make our purchases at the
same place. That would excite suspicion at any
time, particularly at a period so remote from the
Fourth of July.

There were only three stores in town licensed
to sell powder; that gave each store four custom-
ers. Not to run the slightest risk of remark,
one boy bought his powder on Monday, the next
boy on Tuesday, and so on until the requisite
quantity was in our possession. This we put into
- akeg and carefully hid in a dry spot on the wharf.

Our next step was to finish cleaning the guns,
which occupied two afternoons, for several of
the old sogers were in a very congested state in-
deed. Having completed the task, we came upon
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 217

a difficulty. To set off the battery by daylight
was out of the question ; it must be done at night ;
it must be done with fuses, for no doubt the
neighbors would turn out after the first two or
three shots, and it would not pay to be caught in
the vicinity.

Who knew anything about fuses? Who could
arrange it so the guns would go off one after the
other, with an interval of a minute or so between?

Theoretically we knew that a minute fuse lasted
a minute; double the quantity, two minutes; but
practically we were at a stand-still. There was
but one person who could help us in this extrem-
ity — Sailor Ben. To me was assigned the duty
of obtaining what information I could from the
ex-gunner, it being left to my discretion whether
or not to intrust him with our secret.

So one evening I dropped into the cabin and
artfully turned the conversation to fuses in gen-
eral, and then to particular fuses, but without
getting much out of the old boy, who was busy
making atwine hammock. Finally, I was forced
to divulge the whole plot.

The Admiral had a sailor’s love for a joke, and
entered at once and heartily into our scheme.
He volunteered to prepare the fuses himself, and
I left the labor in his hands, having bound him
by several extraordinary oaths — such as “ Hope-
I-may-die” and ‘May I sink first” — not to be-
tray us, come what would.
218 - THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

This was Monday evening. On Wednesday
the fuses were ready. That night we were to un-
muzzle Bailey’s Battery. Mr. Grimshaw saw that
something was wrong somewhere, for we were
restless and absent-minded in the classes, and the
best of us came to grief before the morning ses-
sion was over. When Mr. Grimshaw announced
“Guy Fawkes” as the subject for our next com-
position, you might have knocked down the Mys-
tic Twelve with a feather.

The coincidence was certainly curious, but
when a man has committed, or is about to com-
mit, an offense, a hundred trifles, which would
pass unnoticed at another time, seem to point at
him with convicting fingers. No doubt Guy
Fawkes himself received many a start after he had
got his wicked kegs of gunpowder neatly piled
up under the House of Lords.

Wednesday, as I have mentioned, was a half-
holiday, and the Centipedes assembled in my barn
to decide on the final arrangements. These were
as simple as could be. As the fuses were con-
nected, it needed but one person to fire the train.
Hereupon arose a discussion as to who was the
proper person. Some argued that I ought to
apply the match, the battery being christened
after me, and the main idea, moreover, being
mine. Others advocated the claim of Phil Adams
as the oldest boy. At last we drew lots for the
post of honor.
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 219

Twelve slips of folded paper, upon one of which
was written “Thou art the man,” were placed in
a quart measure, and thoroughly shaken; then
each member stepped up and lifted out his des-
tiny. At a given signal we opened our billets.
“Thou art the man,” said the slip of paper trem-
bling in my fingers. The sweets and anxieties of
a leader were mine the rest of the afternoon.

Directly after twilight set in, Phil Adams stole
down to the wharf and fixed the fuses to the guns,
laying a train of powder from the principal fuse to
the fence, through a chink of which I was to to
the match at midnight.

At ten o'clock Rivermouth goes to bed. At
eleven o’clock Rivermouth is as quiet as a coun-
try churchyard. At twelve o'clock there is no-
thing left with which to compare the stillness that
broods over the little seaport.

In the midst of this stillness I arose and glided
out of the house like a phantom bent on an evil
errand ; like a phantom I flitted through the si-
lent street, hardly drawing breath until I knelt
down beside the fence at the appointed place.

Pausing a moment for my heart to stop thump-
ing, I lighted the match and shielded it with both
hands until it was well under way, and then
dropped the blazing splinter on the slender thread
of gunpowder.

A noiseless flash instantly followed, and all
was dark again. I peeped through the crevice in
220 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the fence, and saw the main fuse spitting out
sparks like a conjurer. Assured that the train
had not failed, I.took to my heels, fearful lest the
fuse might burn more rapidly than we calculated,
and cause an explosion before I could get home.
This, luckily, did not happen. There is a spe-
cial Providence that watches over idiots, drunken
men, and boys.

I dodged the ceremony of undressing by plung-
ing into bed, jacket, boots, and all. I am not
sure I took off my cap; but I know that I had
hardly pulled the coverlid over me, when * Boom!”
sounded the first gun of Bailey’s Battery.

I lay as still as a mouse. In less than two min-
utes there was another burst of thunder, and then
another. The third gun was a tremendous fellow
and fairly shook the house.

The town was waking up. Windows were
thrown open here and there, and people called
to each other across the streets asking what that
firing was for.

“Boom!” went gun number four.

I sprung out of bed and tore off my jacket, for
I heard the Captain feeling his way along the
wall to my chamber. I was half undressed by the
time he found the knob of the door.

“T say, sir,” I cried, “do you hear those guns!”

“Not being deaf, I do,” said the Captain, a
little tartly — any reflection on his hearing always
nettled him; “but what on earth they are for I
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 221

can’t conceive. You had better get up and dress
yourself.”

“T’m nearly dressed,
sir.”

“Boom! Boom! ”—
two of the guns had
gone off together.

The door of Miss Ab-
igail’s bedroom opened
hastily, and that pink —
of maidenly propriety
stepped out into the
hall in her night-gown
— the only indecorous
thing I ever knew her
todo. She held a light-
ed candle in her hand and looked like a very aged
Lady Macbeth.

“O Dan’el, this is dreadful! What do you
suppose it means?”

“TI really can’t suppose,” said the Captain, rub-
bing his ear; “ but I guess it’s over now.”

“Boom!” said Bailey’s Battery.

Rivermouth was wide awake now, and half the
male population were in the streets, running dif-
ferent ways, for the firing seemed to proceed from
opposite points of the town. Everybody waylaid
everybody else with questions; but as no one
knew what was the occasion of the tumult, people
who were not usually nervous began to be op-
pressed by the mystery.



Miss Abigail awakes

)
222 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Some thought the town was being bombarded ;
some thought the world was coming to an end, as
the pious and ingenious Mr. Miller had recently
predicted it would ; but those who could not form
any theory whatever were the most perplexed.

In the mean while Bailey’s Battery bellowed



Bailey's Battery booming

away at regular intervals. The greatest confusion
reigned everywhere by this time. People with
lanterns rushed hither and thither. The town.
watch had turned out to a man, and marched off,
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 223

in admirable order, in the wrong direction. Dis-
covering their mistake, they retraced their steps,
and got down to the wharf just as the last cannon
belched forth its lightning.

A dense cloud of sulphurous smoke floated over
Anchor Lane, obscuring the starlight. Two or
three hundred persons, in various stages of excite-
ment, crowded about the upper end of the wharf,
not liking to advance farther until they were satis-
fied that the explosions were over. A board was
here and there blown from the fence, and through
the openings thus afforded a few of the more dar-
ing spirits at last ventured to crawl.

The cause of the racket soon transpired. A
suspicion that they had been sold gradually
dawned on the Rivermouthians. Many were ex-
ceedingly indignant, and declared that no penalty
was severe enough for those concerned in such
a prank; others— and these were the very per-
sons who had been terrified nearly out of their
wits—had the assurance to laugh, saying that
they knew all along it was only a trick.

The town-watch boldly took possession of the
ground, and the crowd began to disperse. Knots
of gossips lingered here and there near the place,
indulging in vain surmises as to who the invisible
gunners could be.

There was no more noise that night, but many a
timid person lay awake expecting a renewal of the
mysterious cannonading. The Oldest Inhabitant
224 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

refused to go to bed on any terms, but persisted
in sitting up in a rocking-chair, with his hat and
mittens on, until daybreak.

I thought I should never get to sleep. The
moment I drifted off in a doze I fell to laughing
and woke myself up. But towards morning slum-
ber overtook me, and I had a series of disagree-
able dreams, in one of which I was waited upon
by the ghost of Silas Trefethen with an exorbi-
tant bill for the use of his guns. In another, I
was dragged before a court-martial and sentenced
by Sailor Ben, in a frizzled wig and three-cornered
cocked hat, to be shot to death by Bailey’s Bat-
tery —a sentence which Sailor Ben was about to
execute with his own hand, when I suddenly
opened my eyes and found the sunshine lying
pleasantly across my face. I tell you I was glad!

That unaccountable fascination which leads the
suilty to hover about the spot where his crime
was committed drew me down to the wharf as
soon as I was dressed. Phil Adams, Jack Harris,
and others of the conspirators were already there,
examining with a mingled feeling of curiosity and
apprehension the havoc accomplished by the bat-
tery.

The fence was badly shattered and the ground
ploughed up for several yards round the place
where the guns formerly, lay —formerly lay, for
now they were scattered every which way. There
was scarcely a gun that had not burst. Here was
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH = 225

one ripped open from muzzle to breech, and there
was another with its mouth blown into the shape
of atrumpet. Three of the guns had disappeared
bodily, but on looking over the edge of the wharf
we saw them standing on end in the tide-mud.
They had popped overboard in their excitement.

“T tell you what, fellows,” whispered Phil Ad-
ams, ‘it is lucky we did n’t try to touch ’em off
with punk. They ’d have blown us all to flin-
ders.”

The destruction of Bailey’s Battery was not,
unfortunately, the only catastrophe. of one of the cannon had carried away the chim-
ney of Sailor Ben’s cabin. He was very mad at
first, but having prepared the fuse himself he did
not dare complain openly.

“T’d have taken a reef in the blessed stove-
pipe,” said the Admiral, gazing ruefully at the
smashed chimney, “if I had known as how the
Flagship was agoin’ to be under fire.”

The next day he rigged out an iron funnel,
which, being in sections, could be detached and
taken in at a moment’s notice. On the whole, I
think he was resigned to the demolition of his
brick chimney. The stove-pipe was a great deal
more ship-shape.

The town was not so easily appeased. The
selectmen determined to make an example of the
guilty parties, and offered a reward for their ar-
rest, holding out a promise of pardon to any one
226 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

of the offenders who would furnish information
against the rest. But there were no faint hearts
among the Centipedes. Suspicion rested for a
while on several persons—on the soldiers at the
fort; on a crazy fellow, known about town as
“ Bottle-Nose ;” and at last on Sailor Ben.

“ Shiver my timbers !”’ cries that deeply injured
individual. ‘Do you suppose, sir, as I have lived
to sixty year, an’ ain’t got no more sense than
to go for to blaze away at my own upper riggin’?
It does n’t stand to reason.”

It certainly did not seem probable that Mr.
Watson would maliciously knock over his own
chimney, and Lawyer Hackett, who had the case
in hand, bowed himself out of the Admiral’s cabin,
convinced that the right man had not been dis-
covered.

People living by the sea are always more or less
superstitious. Stories of spectre ships and mys-
terious beacons, that lure vessels out of their
course and wreck them on unknown reefs, were
among the stock legends of Rivermouth; and not
a few persons in the town were ready to attribute
the firing of those guns to some supernatural
agency. The Oldest Inhabitant remembered that
when he was a boy a dim-looking sort of
schooner hove to in the offing one foggy ‘after-
noon, fired off a single gun that did not make any
report, and then crumbled to nothing, spar, mast,
and hulk, like a piece of burnt paper.
HOW WE ASTONISHED RIVERMOUTH 227

The authorities, however, were of the opinion
that human hands had something to do with the
explosions, and they resorted to deep-laid strata-
gems to get hold of the said hands. One of their
traps came very near catching us. They artfully
caused an old brass fieldpiece to be left on a
wharf near the scene of our late operations. No-
thing in the world but the lack of money to buy
powder saved us from falling into the clutches of
the two watchmen who lay secreted for a week in
a neighboring sail-loft.

It was many a day before the midnight bom-
bardment ceased to be the town-talk. The trick
was so audacious and on so grand a scale that
nobody thought for an instant of connecting us
lads with it. Suspicion at last grew weary of
lighting on the wrong person, and as conjecture
—like the physicians in the epitaph—was in
vain, the Rivermouthians gave up the idea of find-
ing out who had astonished them.

They never did find out, and never will, unless
they read this veracious history. If the selectmen
are still disposed to punish the malefactors, I can
supply Lawyer Hackett with evidence enough to
convict Pepper Whitcomb, Phil Adams, Charley
Marden, and the other honorable members of the
Centipede Club. But really I do not think it would
pay now.
CHAPTER XVIII
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO

Ir the reader supposes that I lived all this
while in Rivermouth without falling a victim to
one or more of the young ladies attending Miss
Dorothy Gibbs’s Female Institute, why, then, all
I have to say is the reader exhibits his ignorance
of human nature.

Miss Gibbs’s seminary was located within a few
minutes’ walk of the Temple Grammar School,
and numbered about thirty-five pupils, the major-
ity of whom boarded at the Hall— Primrose Hall,
as Miss Dorothy prettily called it. The Prim-
roses, as we called hem, ranged from seven years
of age to sweet seventeen, and a prettier group of
sirens never got together even in Rivermouth,
for Rivermouth, you should know, is famous for its
pretty girls.

There were tall girls and short girls, rosy girls
and pale girls, and girls as brown as berries ; girls
like Amazons, slender gitls, weird and winning
like Undine, girls with black tresses, girls with
auburn ringlets, girls with every tinge of golden
hair. To behold Miss Dorothy’s young ladies of
a Sunday morning walking to church two by two,
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 229

the smallest toddling at the end of the procession,
like the bobs at the tail of a kite, was a spectacle
to fill with tender emotion the least susceptible
heart. To see Miss Dorothy marching grimly at
the head of her light infantry, was to feel the
hopelessness of making an attack on any part of
the column.

She was a perfect dragon of watchfulness. The
most unguarded lifting of an eyelash in the flut-
tering battalion was sufficient to put her on the
lookout. She had had experiences with the male
sex, this Miss Dorothy so prim and grim. It was
whispered that her heart was a tattered album
scrawled over with love-lines, but that she had
shut up the volume long ago.

There was a tradition that she had been crossed
in love; but it was the faintest of traditions. A
gay young lieutenant of marines had flirted with
her at a country ball (A. p. 1811), and then
marched carelessly away at the head of his com-
pany to the shrill music of the fife, without so
much as a sigh for the girl he left behind him.
The years rolled on, the gallant gay Lothario —
which was not his name —married, became a fa-
ther, and then a grandfather; and at the period of
which I am speaking his grandchild was actually
one of Miss Dorothy's young ladies. So, at least,
ran the story.

The lieutenant himself was dead.these many
years ; but Miss Dorothy never got over his du-
230 © THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

plicity. She was convinced that the sole aim of
mankind was to win the unguarded affection of
maidens, and then march off treacherously with
flying colors to the heartless music of the drum
and fife. To shield the inmates of Primrose Hall
from the bitter influences that had blighted her
own early affections was Miss Dorothy’s mission
in life. .

“No wolves prowling about my lambs, if you
please,” said Miss Dorothy. “I will not allow it.”

She was as good as her word. I do not think
the boy lives who ever set foot within the limits
of Primrose Hall while the seminary was under
her charge. Perhaps if Miss Dorothy had given
her young ladies a little more liberty, they would
not have thought it “such fun” to make eyes
over the white lattice fence at the young gen-
tlemen of the Temple Grammar School. I say
perhaps ; for it is one thing to manage thirty-
five young ladies and quite another thing to talk
about it.

But all Miss Dorothy’s vigilance could not pre-
vent the young folks from meeting in the town
now and then, nor could her utmost ingenuity in-
terrupt postal arrangements. There was no end
of notes passing between the students and the
Primroses. Notes tied to the heads of arrows
were shot into dormitory windows; notes were
tucked under fences, and hidden in the trunks of
decayed trees. Every thick place in the boxwood
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 231

hedge that surrounded the seminary was a possi-
ble post-office.

It was a terrible shock to Miss Dorothy the day
she unearthed a nest of letters in one of the huge
wooden urns
surmounting the
gateway that led
to her dovecot.
It was a bitter
moment to Miss
Phoebe and Miss
Candace and
Miss Hesba,
when they had
their locks of
hair grimly
handed back to
them by Miss
Gibbs in the
presence of the
whole — school.
Girls whose
locks of hair had run the blockade in safety were
particularly severe on the offenders. But it did
not stop other notes and other tresses, and I
would like to know what can stop them while the
earth holds together.

Now when I first came to Rivermouth I looked
upon girls as rather tame company; I had not a
spark of sentiment concerning them; but seeing



The Discovery
_ 232 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

my comrades sending and receiving mysterious
epistles, wearing bits of ribbon in their button-
holes, and leaving packages of confectionery (gen-
erally lemon-drops) in the hollow trunks of trees
—why, I felt that this was the proper thing to
do. I resolved, as a matter of duty, to fall in love
with somebody, and I did not care in the least
who it was. In much the same mood that Don
. Quixote selected the Dulcinea del Toboso for his
lady-love, I singled out one of Miss Dorothy’s in-
comparable young ladies for mine.

I debated a long while whether I should not
select zzo, but at last settled down on one—a
pale little girl with blue eyes, named Alice. I
shall not make a long story of this, for Alice made
short work of me. She was secretly in love with
Pepper Whitcomb. ‘This occasioned a temporary
coolness between Pepper and myself.

Not disheartened, however, I placed Laura
Rice —I believe it was Laura Rice —in the va-
cant niche. The new idol was more cruel than
the old. The former frankly sent me to the right
about, but the latter was a deceitful lot. She
wore my nosegay in her dress at the evening ser-
vice (the Primroses were marched to church three
times every Sunday), she penned me the daintiest
of notes, she sent me the glossiest of ringlets (cut,
as I afterwards found out, from the stupid head of
Miss Gibbs’s chambermaid), and at the same time
was holding me and my pony up to ridicule in
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 233

a series of letters written to Jack Harris. It was
Harris himself who kindly opened my eyes.

“T tell you what, Bailey,” said that young gen-
tleman, ‘“‘ Laura is an old veteran, and carries too
many guns for a youngster. She can’t resist a
flirtation ; I believe she ’d flirt with an infant in
arms. There’s hardly a fellow in the school that
has n’t worn her colors and some of her hair.
She doesn’t give out any more of her own hair
now. She had to stop that. The demand was
greater than the supply, you see. It’s all very
well to correspond with Laura, but as to looking
for anything serious from her, the knowing ones
don’t. Hope I haven’t hurt your feelings, old
boy”’ (that was a soothing stroke of flattery to
call me “old boy”), “but ’t was my duty as a
friend and a Centipede to let you know who you
were dealing with.”

Such was the advice given me by that time-
stricken, careworn, and embittered man of the
world, who was sixteen years old if he was a day.

I dropped Laura. In the course of the next
twelve months I had perhaps three or four similar
experiences, and the conclusion was forced upon
me that I was not a boy likely to distinguish
myself in this branch of business.

I fought shy of Primrose Hall from that mo-
ment. Smiles were smiled over the boxwood
hedge, and little hands were occasionally kissed to
me; but I only winked my eye patronizingly, and
® 234 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

passed on. I never renewed tender relations with
Miss Gibbs’s young ladies. All this occurred dur-
ing my first year and a half at Rivermouth.

Between my studies at school, my out-door
recreations, and the hurts my vanity received,
I managed to escape for the time being any very
serious attack of that love fever which, like the
measles, is almost certain to seize upon a boy
sooner or later. I was not to be an exception. I
was merely biding my time. The incidents I have
now to relate took place shortly after the events
described in the last chapter.

In a life so tranquil and circumscribed as ours
in the Nutter House, a visitor was a novelty of no
little importance. The whole household awoke
from its quietude one morning when the Captain
announced that a young niece of his from New
York was to spend a few weeks with us.

The blue chintz room, into which a ray of sun
was never allowed to penetrate, was thrown open
and dusted, and its mouldy air made sweet with a
bouquet of pot-roses placed on the old-fashioned
bureau. Kitty was busy all the forenoon washing
off the sidewalk and sand-papering the great brass
knocker on our front door ; and Miss Abigail was
up to her elbows in a pigeon-pie.

I felt sure it was for no ordinary person that all
these preparations were in progress; and I was
right. Miss Nelly Glentworth was no ordinary
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 235

person. I shall never believe she was. There
may have been lovelier women, though I have
never seen them; there may have been more
brilliant women, though it has not been my fortune
to meet them; but that there was ever a more
charming one than Nelly Glentworth is a propo-
sition against which I contend.

I do not love her now. I do not think of her
once in five years; and yet it would give me a
turn if in the course of my daily walk I should
suddenly come upon her eldest boy. I may say
that her eldest boy was not playing a prominent
part in this life when I first made her acquaint-
ance.

It was a drizzling, cheerless afternoon towards
the end of summer that a hack drew up at the
door of the Nutter House. The Captain and Miss
Abigail hastened into the hall on hearing the
carriage stop. In a moment more Miss Nelly
-Glentworth was seated in our sitting-room under-
going a critical examination at the hands of a
small boy who lounged uncomfortably on a settee
between the windows.

The small boy considered himself a judge of
girls, and he rapidly came to the following conclu-
sions: That Miss Nellie was about nineteen ; that
she had not given away much of her back hair,
which hung in two massive chestnut braids over
her shoulders ; that she was a shade too pale and
a trifle too tall; that her hands were nicely
236 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

shaped and her feet much too diminutive for daily
use. He furthermore observed that her voice was
musical, and that her face lighted up with an in-
describable brightness when she smiled.

On the whole, the small boy liked her well
enough ; and, satisfied that she was not a person
to be afraid of, but, on the contrary, one who
might turn out to be quite agreeable, he departed
to keep an appointment with his friend Sir Pepper
Whitcomb.

But the next morning, when Miss Glentworth
came down to breakfast in a purple dress, her face
as fresh as one of the moss-roses on the bureau
upstairs, and her laugh as contagious as the mer-
riment of a robin, the small boy experienced a
strange sensation, and mentally compared her
with the loveliest of Miss Gibbs’s young ladies, and
found those young ladies wanting in the balance.

A night’s rest had wrought a wonderful change
in Miss Nelly. The pallor and weariness of the
journey had passed away. I looked at her through
the toast rack and thought I had never seen any-
thing more winning than her smile.

After breakfast she went out with me to the
stable to see Gypsy, and the three of us became
friends then and there. Nelly was the only girl
that Gypsy ever took the slightest notice of.

It chanced to be a half-holiday, and a base-ball
match of unusual interest was to come off on the
school ground that afternoon; but, somehow, I
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 237

did not go. I hung about the house abstractedly.
The Captain went up town, and Miss Abigail was
busy in the kitchen making immortal gingerbread.
I drifted into the sitting-room, and had our guest
all to myself for Ido not know how many hours.
It was twilight, I recollect, when the Captain
returned with letters for Miss Nelly.

Many a time after that I sat with her through
the dreamy September afternoons. If I had
played base-ball it would have been much better
for me.

Those first days of Miss Nelly’s visit are very
misty in my remembrance. I try in vain to re-
member just when I began to fall in love with her.
Whether the spell worked upon me gradually or
fell upon me all at once, I do not know. I only
know that it seemed to me as if I had always
loved her. Things that took place before she
came were dim to me, like events that had oc-
curred in the Middle Ages.

Nelly was at least five years my senior. But
what of that? Adam is the only man I ever
heard of who did not in early youth fall in love
with a woman older than himself, and I am con-
vinced that he would have done so if he had had
the opportunity.

I wonder if girls from fifteen to twenty are
aware of the glamour they cast over the straggling
awkward boys whom they regard and treat as mere
children. I wonder, now. Young women are so
238 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

keen in such matters. I wonder if Miss Nelly
Glentworth never suspected until the very last
night of her visit at Rivermouth that I was over
ears in love with her pretty self, and was suffering
pangs as poignant as if I had been ten feet high
and as old as Methuselah. For, indeed, I was
miserable throughout all those five weeks. I went
down in the Latin class at the rate of three boys
aday. Her fresh young eyes came between me
and my book, and there was an end of Virgil
“O love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness,

It winna let a body
Gang about his business.”

I was wretched away from her, and only less
wretched in her presence. The especial cause of
my woe was this: I was simply a little boy to Miss
Glentworth. I knewit. I bewailed it. I ground
my teeth and wept in secret over the fact. If I
had been aught else in her eyes would she have
smoothed my hair so carelessly, sending an elec-
tric shock through my whole system? would she
have walked with me, hand in hand, for hours in
the old garden? and once when I lay on the
sofa, my head aching with love and mortification,
would she have stooped down and kissed me if I
had not been a little boy. How I despised little
“boys! How I hated one particular little boy — too
little to be loved !

I smile over this very grimly even now. My
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 239

sorrow was genuine and bitter. It is a great mis-
take on the part of elderly ladies, male and female,
to tell a child that he is seeing his happiest days.
Do not you believe a word of it, my little friend.
The burdens of childhood are as hard to bear as
the crosses that weigh us down later: in life, while
the happinesses of childhood are tame compared
with those of our maturer years. And even if
this were not so, it is rank cruelty to throw
shadows over the young heart by croaking, “Be
merry, for to-morrow you die!”

As the last days of Nellie’s visit drew near, I
fell into a very unhealthy state of mind. To have
her so frank and unconsciously coquettish with
me was a daily torment; to be looked upon and
treated as a child was bitter almonds; but the
thought of losing her altogether was distraction.

The summer was at an end. The days were
perceptibly shorter, and now and then came an
evening when it was chilly enough to have a wood
fire in our sitting-room. The leaves were begin-
ning to take hectic tints, and the wind was prac-
ticing the minor pathetic notes of its autumnal
dirge. Nature and myself appeared to be ap-
proaching our dissolution simultaneously.

One evening, the evening previous to the day
set for Nelly’s departure — how well I remember
it !—I found her sitting alone by the wide chim-
ney-piece looking musingly at the crackling back-
log. There were no candles in the room. On
240 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

ed

2? P eiealatrce rt Dee cee

4



The Last Evening

her face and hands, and on the small golden cross
at her throat, fell the flickering firelight — that
ruddy, mellow firelight in which one’s grandmo-
ther would look poetical.

I drew a low stool from the corner and placed
it by the side of her chair. She reached out her
hand to me, as was her pretty fashion, and so we
sat for several moments silently in the changing
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 241

glow of the burning logs. Presently I moved back
the stool so that I could see her face in profile
without being seen by her. I lost her hand by
this movement, but I could not have spoken with
the listless touch of her fingers on mine. After
two or three attempts I said ‘“ Nelly” a good deal
louder than I intended. ~

Perhaps the effort it cost me was evident in my
voice. She raised herself quickly in the chair and
half turned towards me.

“Well, Tom?”

“TJ am very sorry you are going away.”

“Soam I. I have enjoyed every hour of my
visit.”

“Do you think you will ever come back here?”

“Perhaps,” said Nelly, and her eyes wandered
off into the fitful firelight.

“T suppose you will forget us all very quickly.”

“Indeed I shall not. I shall always have the
pleasantest recollections of Rivermouth.”

Here the conversation died a natural death.
Nelly sank into a sort of dream, and I meditated.
Fearing every moment to be interrupted by some
member of the family, I nerved myself to make a
bold dash.

“ Nelly.”

“Well.”

‘“Do you” — I hesitated.

“Do I what?”

Love any one very much?”
242 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

“Why, of course I do,” said Nelly, scattering
her revery with a merry laugh. “I love Uncle
Nutter and Aunt Nutter, and you—and Towser.”

Towser, our new dog! I could not stand that.
I pushed back the stool impatiently and stood in
front of her.

“That ’s not what I mean,” I said angrily.

“Well, what do you mean?”

“Do you love any one to marry him?”

“ The idea of it,” cried Nelly, laughing.

“But you must tell me.”

‘Must, Tom?”

“Indeed you must, Nelly.”

She had risen from the chair with an amused,
perplexed look in her eyes. I held her an instant
by the dress.

“ Please tell me.”

“Oh you silly boy!” cried Nelly. Then she
rumpled my hair all over my forehead and ran
laughing out of the room.

Suppose Cinderella had rumpled the prince’s
hair all over his forehead, how would he have liked
it? Suppose the Sleeping Beauty when the
king’s son with a kiss set her and all the old
clocks agoing in the spellbound castle — suppose
the young minx had looked up and coolly laughed
in his eye, I guess the king’s son would not have
been greatly pleased.

I hesitated a second or two and then rushed
after Nelly just in time to run against Miss Abi-
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 243

gail, who entered the room with a couple of lighted
candles.

“Goodness gracious, Tom!” exclaimed Miss
Abigail, “are you possessed ?”

I left her scraping the warm spermaceti from
one of her thumbs.

Nelly was in the kitchen talking quite uncon-
cernedly with Kitty Collins. There she remained
until supper-time. Supper over, we all adjourned
to the sitting-room. I
planned and plotted,
but could manage in no
way to get Nelly alone.
She and the Captain wy
played cribbage all the yj
evening.

The next morning /ij
my lady did not make 4
her appearance until >}
we were seated at the /
breakfast-table. I had
got up at daylight my-
self. Immediately after
breakfast the carriage
arrived to take her to
the railway station. A
gentleman stepped from this carriage, and greatly
to my surprise was warmly welcomed by the Cap-
tain and Miss Abigail, and by Miss Nelly herself,
who seemed unnecessarily glad to see him. From






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Removing the Spermaceti
244 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the hasty conversation that followed I learned that
the gentleman had come somewhat unexpectedly
to conduct Miss Nelly to Boston. But how did
he know that she was to leave that morning?
Nelly bade farewell to the Captain and Miss
Abigail, made a little rush and kissed me on the
nose, and was gone.

As the wheels of the hack rolled up the street
and over my finer feelings, I turned to the Cap-
tain.

“Who was that gentleman, sir?”

“That was Mr. Waldron.”

“A relation of yours, sir?” I asked craftily.

“No relation of mine —a relation of Nelly’s,”
said the Captain, smiling.

“A cousin,’ I suggested, feeling a strange ha-
tred spring up in my bosom for the unknown.

“ Well, I suppose you might call him a cousin
for the present. He’s going to marry little Nelly
next summer.”

In one of Peter Parley’s valuable historical
works is a description of an earthquake at Lisbon.
“At the first shock the inhabitants rushed into
the streets ; the earth yawned at their feet and the
houses tottered and fell on every side.” I stag-
gered past the Captain into the street; a giddi-
ness came over me; the earth yawned at my feet,
and the houses threatened to fall in on every side
of me. How distinctly I remember that momen-
tary sense of confusion when everything in the
world seemed toppling over into ruins.
A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO 245

As I have remarked, my love for Nelly is a thing
of the past. I had not thought of her for years
‘until I sat down to write this chapter, and yet, now
that all is said and done, I should not care particu-
larly to come across Mrs. Waldron’s eldest boy in
my afternoon’s walk. He must be fourteen or fif-
teen years old by this time — the young villain !
CHAPTER XIX
I BECOME A BLIGHTED BEING

WHEN a young boy gets to be an old boy, when
the hair is growing rather thin on the top of
the old boy’s head, and he has been tamed suffi-
ciently to take a sort of chastened pleasure in
allowing the baby to play with his watch-seals —
when, I say, an old boy has reached this stage in
the journey of life, he is sometimes apt to indulge
in sportive remarks concerning his first love.

Now, though I bless my stars that it was not in
my power to marry Miss Nelly, I am not going
to deny my boyish regard for her nor laugh at
it. As long as it lasted it was a very sincere and
unselfish love, and rendered me proportionately
wretched. I say as long as it lasted, for one’s
first love does not last forever.

I am ready, however, to laugh at the amusing
figure I cut after I had really ceased to have any
deep feeling in the matter. It was then I took it
into my head to be a Blighted Being. This was
about two weeks after the spectral appearance of
Mr. Waldron.

For a boy of a naturally vivacious disposition,
the part of a blighted being presented difficulties.
I BECOME A BLIGHTED BEING 247

I had an excellent appetite, I liked society, I liked
out-of-door sports, I was fond of handsome clothes.
Now all these things were incompatible with the
doleful character I was to assume, and I proceeded
to cast them from me.
I neglected my hair.
I avoided my play-
mates. I frowned ab-
stractedly. I did not
eat as much as was
good for me. I took
lonely walks. I brood-
ed in solitude. I not
only committed to
memory the more tur-
gid poems of the late Lord Byron—‘“‘ Fare thee
well, and if forever,” etc.—but I became a de-
spondent poet on my own account, and composed
a string of “Stanzas to One who will understand
them.” I think I was a trifle too hopeful on that
point ; for I came across the verses several years
afterwards, and was quite unable to understand
them myself.

It was a great comfort to be so perfectly miser-
able and yet not suffer any. I used to look in the
glass and gloat over the amount and variety of
mournful expressions I could throw into my fea-
tures. If I caught myself smiling at anything, I
cut the smile short with a sigh. The oddest thing
about all this is, I never once suspected that I



Ln Love
248 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

was zot unhappy. No one, not even Pepper Whit-
comb, was more deceived than I.

Among the minor pleasures of being blighted
were the interest and perplexity I excited in the
simple souls that were thrown in daily contact
with me. Pepper especially. I nearly drove him
into a corresponding state of mind.

I had from time to time given Pepper slight but
impressive hints of my admiration for Some One
(this was in the early part of Miss Glentworth’s
visit) ; I had also led him to infer that my admira-
tion was not altogether in vain. He was therefore
unable to explain the cause of my strange behavior,
for I had carefully refrained from mentioning to
Pepper the fact that Some One had turned out to
be Another’s.

I treated Pepper shabbily. I could not resist
playing on his tenderer feelings. He was a boy
bubbling over with sympathy for any one in any
kind of trouble. Our intimacy since Binny Wal-
lace’s death had been uninterrupted; but now I
moved in a sphere apart, not to be profaned by
the step of an outsider.

I no longer joined the boys on the playground
at recess. I stayed at my desk reading some lu-
gubrious volume — usually The Mysteries of Udol-
pho, by the amiable Mrs. Radcliffe. A translation
of The Sorrows of Werther fell into my hands at
this period, and if I could have committed suicide
without killing myself, I should certainly have
done so.
I BECOME A BLIGHTED BEING 249

On half-holidays, instead of fraternizing with
Pepper and the rest of our clique, I would wander
off alone to Grave Point.

Grave Point —the place where Binny Wallace’s
body came ashore — was a narrow strip of land
running out into the river. A line of Lombardy
poplars, stiff and severe, like a row of grenadiers,
mounted guard on the water-side. On the ex-
treme end of the peninsula was an old disused
graveyard, tenanted principally by the early set-
tlers who had been scalped by the Indians. In a
remote corner of the cemetery, set apart from the
other mounds, was the grave of a woman who had
been hanged in the old colonial times for the
murder of her infant. Goodwife Polly Haines had
denied the crime to the last, and after her death
there had arisen strong doubts as to her actual
guilt. It was a belief current among the lads of
the town, that if you went to this grave at night-
fall on the roth of November—the anniversary
of her execution —and asked, “For what did the
magistrates hang you?” a voice would reply,
“ Nothing.”

Many a Rivermouth boy has tremblingly put
this question in the dark, and, sure enough, Polly
Haines invariably answered nothing!

A low red-brick wall, broken down in many
places and frosted over with silvery moss, sur-
rounded this burial-ground of our Pilgrim Fathers
and their immediate descendants. The latest date
250 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

on any of the headstones was 1760. A crop of
very funny epitaphs sprung up here and there
among the overgrown thistles and burdocks, and
almost every tablet had a death’s-head with cross-
bones engraved upon it, or else a puffy round face
with a pair of wings stretching out from the ears,
like this :



\< 3

These mortuary emblems furnished me with
congenial food for reflection. I used to lie in the
long grass, and speculate on the advantages and
disadvantages of being a cherub.

I forget what I thought the advantages were,
but I remember distinctly of getting into an inex-
tricable tangle on two points : How could acherub,
being all head and wings, manage to sit down
when he was tired? To have to sit down on the
back of his head struck me as an awkward alter-
native. Again: Where did a cherub carry those
indispensable articles (such as jackknives, marbles,
and pieces of twine) which boys in an earthly state
of existence usually stow away in their trousers
pockets ?

These were knotty questions, and I was never
able to dispose of them satisfactorily.










Lama Blighted Being
I BECOME A BLIGHTED BEING 253

Meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb would scour the
- whole town in search of me. He finally discov-
ered my retreat, and dropped in on me abruptly
one afternoon, while I was deep in the cherub
problem.

“ Look here, Tom Bailey!” said Pepper, shying
a piece of clam-shell indignantly at the Ac jace¢
on a neighboring gravestone, “you are just going
to the dogs! Can’t you tell a fellow what in thun-
der ails you, instead of prowling round among the
tombs like a jolly old vampire?”

“Pepper,” I replied, solemnly, “don’t ask me ;
you would n’t understand. Some day you may.
You are too fat and thoughtless now.”

Pepper stared at me.

“Earthly happiness,” I continued, “is a delu-
sion anda snare. You will never be happy, Pep-
per, until you are a cherub.”

Pepper, by the by, would have made an excel-
lent cherub, he was so chubby. Having delivered
myself of these gloomy remarks, I arose languidly
from the grass and moved away, leaving Pepper
staring after me in mute astonishment. I was
Hamlet and Werther and the late Lord Byron all
in one,

You will ask what my purpose was in cultivat-
ing this factitious despondency. None whatever.
Blighted Beings never have any purpose in life
excepting to be as blighted as possible.

Of course my present line of business could not
254 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

long escape the eye of Captain Nutter. I do not
know if the Captain suspected my attachment for
Miss Glentworth. He never alluded to it; but
he watched me. Miss Abigail watched me, Kitty
Collins watched me, and Sailor Ben watched me.

“ T can’t make out his signals,” I overheard the
Admiral remark to my grandfather one day. “I
hope he ain’t got no kind of sickness aboard.”

There was something singularly agreeable in
being an object of so great interest. Sometimes
I had all I could do to preserve my dejected as-
pect, it was so pleasant to be miserable. I incline
to the opinion that persons who are melancholy
without any particular reason, such as poets, ar-
tists, and young musicians with long hair, have
rather an enviable time of it. In a quiet way I
never enjoyed myself better in my life than when
I was a Blighted Being.
CHAPTER XX

IN WHICH I PROVE MYSELF TO BE THE GRANDSON
OF MY GRANDFATHER

Ir was not possible for a boy of my temper-
ament to be a blighted being longer than three
consecutive weeks.

I was gradually emerging from my self-imposed
cloud when events took place that greatly assisted
in restoring me to a more natural frame of mind.
I awoke from an imaginary trouble to face a real
one.

I suppose you do not know what a financial
crisis is ? I will give you an illustration.

You are deeply in debt — say to the amount of
a quarter of a dollar — to the little knicknack shop
round the corner, where they sell picture-papers,
spruce-gum, needles, and Malaga raisins. A boy
owes you a quarter of a dollar, which he promises
to pay ata certain time. You are depending on
this quarter to settle accounts with the small
shopkeeper. The time arrives—and the quarter
does not. That’s a financial crisis, in one sense
-— in twenty-five senses, if I may say so.

When this same thing happens, on a grander
scale, in the mercantile world, it produces what is
256 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

called a panic. One man’s inability to pay his
debts ruins another man, who, in turn, ruins some
one else, and so on, until failure after failure
makes even the richest capitalists tremble. Pub-
lic confidence is suspended, and the smaller fry of
merchants are knocked over like tenpins.

These commercial panics occur periodically,
after the fashion of comets and earthquakes and
other disagreeable things. Such a panic took
place in New Orleans in the year 18— and my fa-
ther’s banking-house went to pieces in the crash.

Of a comparatively large fortune nothing re-
mained after paying his debts excepting a few
thousand dollars, with which he proposed to re-
turn North and embark in some less hazardous
enterprise. In the mean time it was necessary
for him to stay in New Orleans to wind up the
business.

My grandfather was in some way involved in
this failure, and lost, I fancy, a considerable sum
of money ; but he never talked much on the sub-
ject. He was an unflinching believer in the spilt-
milk proverb.

“Tt can’t be gathered up,” he would say, “and
it’s no use crying over it. Pitch into the cow and
get some more milk, is my motto.”

The suspension of the banking-house was bad
enough, but there was an attending circumstance
that gave us, at Rivermouth, a: great deal more
anxiety. The cholera, which some one predicted
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 257

would visit the country that year, and which, in-
deed, had made its appearance ina mild form at
several points along the Mississippi River, had
broken out with much violence at New Orleans.

The report that first reached us through the
newspapers was meagre and contradictory ; many
persons discredited it; but a letter from my mother
left us no room for doubt. The sickness was in
the city. The hospitals were filling up, and hun-
dreds of the citizens were flying from the stricken
place by every steamboat. The unsettled state of
my father’s affairs made it imperative for him to
remain at his post; his desertion at that moment
would have been at the sacrifice of all he had
saved from the general wreck.

As he would be detained in New Orleans at
least three months, my mother declined to come
North without him.

After this we awaited with feverish impatience
the weekly news that came to us from the South.
The next letter advised us that my parents
were well, and that the sickness, so far, had not
penetrated to the faubourg, or district, where
they lived. The following week brought less
cheering tidings. My father’s business, in con-
sequence of the flight of the other partners,
would keep him in the city beyond the period he
had mentioned. The family had moved to Pass
Christian, a favorite watering-place on Lake
Pontchartrain, near New Orleans, where he was
258 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

able to spend part of each week. So the return
North was postponed indefinitely.

It was now that the old longing to see my
parents came back to me with irresistible force.
I knew my grandfather would not listen to the
idea of my going to New Orleans at such a dan-
gerous time, since he had opposed the journey so
strongly when the same objection did not exist.
But I determined to go nevertheless.

I think I have mentioned the fact that all the
male members of our family, on my father’s side
—as far back as the Middle Ages — have exhib-
ited in early youth a decided talent for running
away. It was an hereditary talent. It ran in the
blood to run away. Ido not pretend to explain
the peculiarity. I simply admit it.

It was not my fate to change the prescribed
order of things. I, too, was to run away, thereby
proving, if any proof were needed, that I was the
grandson of my grandfather. I do not hold myself
responsible for the step any more than I do for
the shape of my nose, which is said to be a fac-
simile of Captain Nutter’s.

I have frequently noticed how circumstances
conspire to help a man, or a boy, when he has
thoroughly resolved on doing a thing. That very
week the Rivermouth Barnacle printed an adver-
tisement that seemed to have been written on
purpose for me. It read as follows:
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 259

WANTED.— A Few ABLE-BODIED SEAMEN and a Cabin-Boy, for
the ship Rawlings, now loading for New Orleans at Johnson’s Wharf,
Boston. Apply in person, within four days, at the office of Messrs.
& Co., or on board the Ship.

How I was to get to New Orleans with only
$4.62 was a question that had been bothering me.
This advertisement made it as clear as day. I
would go as cabin-boy.

I had taken Pepper into my confidence again;
I had told him the story of my love for Miss
Glentworth, with all its harrowing details ; and
now conceived it judicious to confide in him the
change about to take place in my life, so that, if
the Rawlings went down in a gale, my friends
might have the limited satisfaction of knowing
what had become of me.

Pepper shook his head discouragingly, and
sought in every way to dissuade me from the
step. He drew a disenchanting picture of the
existence of a cabin-boy, whose constant duty
(according to Pepper) was to have dishes broken
over his head whenever the captain or the mate
chanced to be out of humor, which was mostly all
the time. But nothing Pepper said could turn
me a hair’s breadth from my purpose.

I had little time to spare, for the advertisement
stated explicity that applications were to be made
in person within four days. I trembled to think
of the bare possibility of some other boy snapping
up that desirable situation.

It was on Monday that I stumbled upon the




260 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

advertisement. On Tuesday my preparations
were completed. My baggage —consisting of
four shirts, half a dozen collars, a piece of shoe-
maker’s wax (Heaven knows what for!), and five
stockings, wrapped in a silk handkerchief —lay
hidden under a loose plank of the stable floor.
This was my point of departure.

My plan was to take the last train for Boston,
in order to prevent the possibility of immediate
pursuit, if any should be attempted. The train
left at 4 P.M.

I ate no breakfast and little dinner that day. I
avoided the Captain’s eye, and would not have
looked Miss Abigail or Kitty in the face for the
wealth of the Indies.

When it was time to start for the station I re-
tired quietly to the stable and uncovered my bun-
dle. I lingered a moment to kiss the white star
on Gypsy’s forehead, and was nearly unmanned
when the little animal returned the caress by lap-
ping my cheek. Twice I went back and patted
her.

On reaching the station I purchased my ticket
with a bravado air that ought to have aroused the
suspicion of the ticket-master, and hurried to the
car, where J sat fidgeting until the train shot out
into the broad daylight.

Then I drew a long breath and looked about
me. The first object that saluted my sight was
Sailor Ben, four or five seats behind me, reading
the Rivermouth Barnacle !
«

THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 261

Reading was not an easy art to Sailor Ben; he
grappled with the sense of a paragraph as if it
were a polar bear, and generally got the worst of
it. On the present occasion he was having a hard
struggle, judging by the way he worked his mouth
and rolled his eyes. He had evidently not seen
me. But what was he doing on the Boston train?

Without lingering to solve the question, I stole
gently from my seat and passed into the forward
car.

This was very awkward, having the Admiral on
board. I could not understand it at all. Could it
be possible that the old boy had got tired of land
and was running away to sea himself? That was
too absurd a supposition. I glanced nervously to-
wards the car door now and then, half expecting
to see him come after me.

We had passed one or two way-stations, and I
had quieted down a good deal, when I began to
feel as if somebody was looking steadily at the
~ back of my head. I turned round involuntarily
and there was Sailor Ben again, at the farther end
of the car, wrestling with the Rivermouth Bar-
nacle as before.

I began to grow very uncomfortable indeed.
Was it by design or chance that he thus dogged
my steps? If he was aware of my presence, why
did he not speak to me at once ? Why did he
steal round, making no sign, like a particularly
unpleasant phantom? Maybe it was not Sailor
262 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Ben. I peeped at him slyly. There was no mis-
taking that tanned, genial phiz of his. Very odd
he did not see me /

Literature, even in the mild form of a country
newspaper, always had the effect of poppies on
the Admiral. When I stole another glance in his
direction his hat was tilted over his right eye in
the most dissolute style, and the Rivermouth Bar-
nacle lay in a con-
fused heap beside
him. He had suc-
cumbed. He was
fast asleep. If he
would only keep
asleep until we
reached our destina-
tion !

By and by I dis-
covered that the
rear car had been
detached from the train at the last stopping-place.
This accounted satisfactorily for Sailor Ben’s singu-
lar movements, and considerably calmed my fears.
Nevertheless, I did not like the aspect of things.

The Admiral continued to snooze like a good
fellow, and was snoring melodiously as we glided
at a slackened pace over a bridge and into Boston.

I grasped my pilgrim’s bundle, and, hurrying
out of the car, dashed up the first street that pre-
sented itself.



The Admiral on Guard
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 263

It was a narrow, noisy, zigzag street, crowded
with trucks and obstructed with bales and boxes
of merchandise. Idid not pause to breathe until
I had placed a respectable distance between me
and the railway station. By this time it was
nearly twilight.

I had got into the region of dwelling-houses,
and was about to seat myself on a doorstep to
rest, when, lo! there was the Admiral trundling
along on the opposite sidewalk, under a full spread
of canvas, as he would have expressed it.

I was off again in an instant at a rapid pace;
but in spite of all I could do he held his own with-
out any perceptible exertion. He had a very ugly
gait to get away from, the Admiral. I did not dare
to run, for fear of being mistaken for a thief, a
suspicion which my bundle would naturally lend
color to.

I pushed ahead, however, at a brisk trot, and
must have got over one or two miles — my pur-
suer neither gaining nor losing ground — when I
concluded to surrender at discretion. I saw that
Sailor Ben was determined to have me, and, know-
ing my man, I knew that escape was highly im-
probable.

So I turned round and waited for him to catch
up with me, which he did in a few seconds, look-
ing rather sheepish at first.

“Sailor Ben,” said I severely, “do I understand
that you are dogging my steps?”
264 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

“Well, little messmate,” replied the Admiral,
rubbing his nose, which he always did when he
was disconcerted, “I az kind o’ followin’ in your
- wake.”

“ Under orders ?”

“ Under orders.”

“ Under the Captain’s orders ?”

“ Surely.”

“In other words, my grandfather has sent you
to fetch me back to Rivermouth?”

“That’s about it,” said the Admiral, with a
burst of frankness.

“ And I must go with you whether I want to or
not?”

“The Capen’s very identical words!”

There was nothing to be done. I bit my lips
with suppressed anger, and signified that I was at
his disposal, since I could not help it. The im-
pression was very strong in my mind that the
- Admiral would not hesitate to put me in irons if
I showed signs of mutiny.

It was too late to return to Rivermouth that
night —a fact which I communicated to the old
boy sullenly, inquiring at the same time what he
proposed to do about it.

He said we would cruise about for some rations,
and then make a night of it. I did not condescend
to reply, though I hailed the suggestion of some-
thing to eat with inward enthusiasm, for I had not
taken enough food that day to keep life ina canary.
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 265

We wandered back to the railway station, in
the waiting-room of which was a kind of restaurant
presided over by a severe-looking young lady.
Here we had a cup of coffee apiece, several tough
doughnuts, and some blocks of venerable sponge-
cake. The young lady who attended on us, what-
ever her age was then, must have been a mere
child when that sponge-cake was made.

The Admiral’s acquaintance with Boston hotels
was slight; but he knew of a quiet lodging-house
near by, much patronized by sea-captains, and
kept by a former friend of his.

In this house, which had seen its best days, we
were accommodated with a mouldy chamber con-
taining two cot-beds, two chairs, and a cracked
pitcher on a washstand. The mantel-shelf was
ornamented with three big pink conch-shells, re-
sembling pieces of petrified liver; and over these
hunga cheap lurid print, in which a United States
sloop-of-war was giving a British frigate particular
fits. It is very strange how our own ships never
seem to suffer any in these terrible engagements.
It shows what a nation we are.

An oil-lamp on a deal-table cast a dismal glare
over the apartment, which was cheerless in the
extreme. I thought of our sitting-room at home,
with its flowery wall-paper and gay curtains and
soft lounges; I saw Major Elkanah Nutter (my
grandfather’s father) in powdered wig and Fed-
eral uniform, looking down benevolently from his
266 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

gilt frame between the bookcases; I pictured
the Captain and Miss Abigail sitting at the cosy
round table in the moonlight glow of the astral
lamp ; and then I fell to wondering how they
would receive me when I came back. I wondered
if the Prodigal Son had any idea that his father
was going to kill the fatted calf for him, and how
he felt about it, on the whole.

Though I was very low in spirits, I put on a
bold front to Sailor Ben, you will understand. To
be caught and caged in this manner was a fright-
ful shock to my vanity. He tried to draw me into
conversation ; but I answered in icy monosyllables.
He again suggested we should make a night of
it, and hinted broadly that he was game for any
amount of riotous dissipation, even to the extent
of going to see a play if I wanted to. I declined
haughtily. I was dying to go.

He then threw out a feeler on the subject of
dominoes and checkers, and observed in a general
way that ‘seven up” was a capital game; but I
repulsed him at every point.

I saw that the Admiral was beginning to feel
hurt by my systematic coldness. We had always
been such hearty friends until now. It was too
bad of me to fret that tender, honest old heart
even for an hour. I really did love the ancient
boy, and when in a disconsolate way he ordered
up a pitcher of beer, I unbent so far as to partake
of some in a teacup. He recovered his spirits
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 267

instantly, and took out his cuddy clay pipe for a
smoke.

Between the beer and the soothing fragrance
of the navy-plug, I fell into a pleasanter mood
myself, and, it being too late now to go to the



Playing “ Seven Up”

theatre, I condescended to say — addressing the
northwest corner of the ceiling — that “seven up”
was a capital game. Upon this hint the Admiral
disappeared, and returned shortly with a very
dirty pack of cards.

As we played, with varying fortunes, by the
_ 268 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

flickering flame of the lamp, he sipped his beer
and became communicative. He seemed im-
mensely tickled by the fact that I had come to
Boston. It leaked out presently that he and the
Captain had had a wager on the subject.

The discovery of my plans and who had dis-
covered them were points on which the Admiral
refused to throw any light. They had been dis-
covered, however, and the Captain had laughed at
the idea of my running away. Sailor Ben, on the
contrary, had stoutly contended that I meant to
slip cable and be off. Whereupon the captain
offered to bet him a dollar that I would not go.
And it was partly on account of this wager that
Sailor Ben refrained from capturing me when he
might have done so at the start.

Now, as the fare to and from Boston, with the
lodging expenses, would cost at least five dollars,
I did not see what he gained by winning the
wager. The Admiral rubbed his nose violently
when this view of the case presented itself.

I asked: him why he did not take me from the
train at the first stopping-place and return to
Rivermouth by the down train at 4.30. He ex-
plained: having purchased a ticket for Boston, he
considered himself bound to the owners (the stock-
holders of the road) to fulfill his part of the con-
tract. To use his own words, he had “shipped
for the viage.”

This struck me as being so deliciously funny, that
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 269.

after I was in bed and the light was out I could
not help laughing aloud once or twice. I suppose
the Admiral must have thought I was meditating
another escape, for he made periodical visits to
my bed throughout the night, satisfying himself
by kneading me all over that I had not evaporated.

I was all there the next morning, when Sailor
Ben half awakened me by shouting merrily, “ All
hands on deck!” The words rang in my ears
like a part of my own dream, for I was at that in-
stant climbing up the side of the Rawlings to
offer myself as cabin-boy.

The Admiral was obliged to shake me roughly
two or three times before he could detach me
from the dream. I opened my eyes with effort,
and stared stupidly round the room. Bit by bit
my real situation dawned on me. What a sick-
ening sensation that is, when one is in trouble, to
wake up feeling free for a moment, and then to
find yesterday’s sorrow all ready to go on again!

“ Well, little messmate, how fares it ?”

I was too much depressed to reply. The
thought of returning to Rivermouth chilled me.
How could I face Captain Nutter, to say nothing
of Miss Abigail and Kitty? How the Temple
Grammar School boys would look at me! How
Conway and Seth Rodgers would exult over my
mortification! And what if the Rev. Wibird
Hawkins should allude to me in his next Sun-
day’s sermon ?
270 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Sailor Ben was wise in keeping an eye on me,
for after these thoughts took possession of my
mind, I wanted only the opportunity to give him
the slip.

The keeper of the lodgings did not supply
meals to his guests ; so we breakfasted at a small
chop-house in a crooked street on our way to the
cars. The city was not astir yet, and looked
glum and careworn in the damp morning atmos-
phere.

Here and there as we passed along was a sharp-
faced shop-boy taking down shutters; and now
and then we met a seedy man who had evidently
spent the night in a doorway. Such early birds
and a few laborers with their tin kettles were the
only signs of life to be seen until we came to the
station, where I insisted on paying for my own
ticket. I did not relish being conveyed from
place to place, like a felon changing prisons, at
somebody else’s expense.

On entering the car I sunk into a seat next the
window, and Sailor Ben deposited himself beside
me, cutting off all chance of escape.

The car filled up soon after this, and I won-
dered if there was anything in my mien that would
lead the other passengers to suspect I was a boy
who had run away and was being brought back.

A man in front of us —he was near-sighted, as
I discovered later by his reading a guide-book with
his nose — brought the blood to my cheeks by
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 271

turning round and peering at me steadily. I
rubbed a clear spot on the cloudy window-glass
at my elbow, and looked out to avoid him.

There, in the travelers’ room, was the severe-
looking young lady pil-
ing up her blocks of
sponge-cake in allur-
ing pyramids and in-
dustriously intrench-
ing herself behind a
breastwork of squash-
pie. I saw with pleas-
ure numerous victims
walk up to the coun-
ter and recklessly sow
the seeds of death
in their constitutions
by eating her dough- The Near-Sighted Man
nuts. I had got quite
interested in her, when the whistle sounded and
the train began to move.

The Admiral and I did not talk much on the
journey. I stared out of the window most of the
time, speculating as to the probable nature of
the reception in store for meat the terminus of
the road.

What would the Captain say? and Mr. Grim-
shaw, what would he do about it? Then I thought
of Pepper Whitcomb. Dire was the vengeance I
meant to wreak on Pepper, for who but he had


272 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

betrayed me? Pepper alone had been the reposi-
tory of my secret —perfidious Pepper!

As we left station after station behind us, I felt
less and less like encountering the members of
our family. Sailor Ben fathomed what was pass-
ing in my mind, for he leaned over and said :

“T don’t think as the Capen will bear down very
hard on you.”

But it was not that. It was not the fear of any
physical punishment that might be inflicted; it
was the sense of my own folly that was creeping
over me; for during the long, silent ride I had
examined my conduct from every standpoint, and
there was no view I could take of myself in which
I did not look like a very foolish person indeed.

As we came within sight of the spires of River-
mouth, I would not have cared if the up train,
which met us outside the town, had run into us
and ended me.

Contrary to my expectation and dread, the Cap-
tain was not visible when we stepped from the
cars. Sailor Ben glanced among the crowd of
faces, apparently looking for him too. Conway
was there —he was always hanging about the sta-
tion — and if he had intimated in any way that he
knew of my disgrace and enjoyed it, I should
have walked into him, I am certain.

But this defiant feeling entirely deserted me by
the time we reached the Nutter House. The
Captain himself opened the door.
THE GRANDSON OF MY GRANDFATHER 273

’

«Come on board, sir,” said Sailor Ben, scraping
his left foot and touching his hat sea-fashion.

My grandfather nodded to Sailor Ben, some-
what coldly I thought, and much to my astonish-
ment kindly took me by the hand.

I was unprepared for this, and the tears, which
no amount of severity would have wrung from me,
welled up to my eyes.

The expression of my grandfather’s face, as I
glanced at it hastily, was grave and gentle; there
was nothing in it of anger or reproof. I followed
him into the sitting-room, and, obeying a motion
of his hand, seated myself on the sofa. He re-
mained standing by the round table for a moment,
lost in thought, then leaned over and picked up a
letter.

It was a letter with a great black seal.
CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH I LEAVE RIVERMOUTH

A LETTER with a great black seal!

I knew then what had happened as well as I
know it now. But which was it, father or mother?
Ido not like to look back to the agony and sus-
pense of that moment.

My father had died at New Orleans during one
of his weekly visits to the city. The letter bear-
ing these tidings had reached Rivermouth the
evening of my flight — had passed me on the road
by the down train.

I must turn back for a moment to that eventful
evening. When I failed to make my appearance
at supper, the Captain began to suspect that I
had really started on my wild tour southward —a
conjecture which Sailor Ben’s absence helped to
confirm. I had evidently got off by the train and
Sailor Ben had followed me.

There was no telegraphic communication be-
tween Boston and Rivermouth in those days; so
my grandfather could do nothing but await the
result. Even if there had been another mail to
Boston, he could not have availed himself of it,
not knowing how to address a message to the
IN WHICH I LEAVE RIVERMOUTH 275

fugitives. The post-office was naturally the last
place either I or the Admiral would think of vis-
iting.

My grandfather, however, was too full of trouble
to allow this to add to his distress. He knew that
the faithful old sailor would not let me come to
any harm, and even if I had managed for the time
being to elude him, was sure to bring me back
sooner or later.

On our return, therefore, by the first train on
the following day did not surprise hiin.

I was greatly puzzled, as I have said, by the
gentle manner of his reception ; but when we were
alone together in the sitting-room, and he began
slowly to unfold the letter, I understood it all. I
caught a sight of my mother’s handwriting in the
superscription, and there was nothing left to tell
me.

My grandfather held the letter a few seconds
irresolutely, and then commenced reading it aloud ;
but he could get no further than the date.

“T can’t read it, Tom,” said the old gentleman,.
breaking down. ‘I thought I could.”

He handed it to me. I took the letter mechan-
ically, and hurried away with it to my little room,
where I had passed so many happy houts.

The week that followed the receipt of this letter
is nearly a blank in my memory. I remember that
the days appeared endless; that at times I could
not realize the misfortune that had befallen us,

3
276 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

and my heart upbraided me for not feeling a deeper
grief; that a full sense of my loss would now and
then sweep over me like an inspiration, and I
would steal away to my chamber or wander for-
lornly about the gardens, I remember this, but
little more.

As the days went by my first grief subsided,
and in its place grew up a want which I have ex-
perienced at every step in life from boyhood to
manhood. Often, even now, after all these years,



My First Grief

when I see a lad of twelve or fourteen walking by
his father’s side, and glancing merrily up at his
face, I turn and look after them, and am conscious
that I have missed companionship most sweet and
sacred.
IN WHICH I LEAVE RIVERMOUTH 277

I shall not dwell on this portion of my story.
There were many tranquil, pleasant hours in store
for me at that period, and I prefer to turn to them.

One evening the Captain came smiling into the
sitting-room with an open letter in his hand. My
mother had arrived at New York, and would be
with us the next day. For the first time in weeks
— years, it seemed to me—something of the old
cheerfulness mingled with our conversation round
the evening lamp. I was to go to Boston with the
Captain to meet her and bring her home. I need
not describe that meeting. With my mother’s
hand in mine once more, all the long years. we had
been parted appeared like a dream. Very dear to
me was the sight of that slender, pale woman
passing from room to room, and lending a patient
grace and beauty to the saddened life of the old
house.

Everything was changed with us now. There
were consultations with lawyers, and signing of
papers, and correspondence ; for my father’s affairs
had been left in great confusion. And when these
were settled, the evenings were not long enough
for us to hear all my mother. had to tell of the
scenes she had passed through in the ill-fated
city: :

Then there were old times to talk over, full of
reminiscences of Aunt Chloe and little Black Sam,
Little Black Sam, by the by, had been taken by
278 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

his master from. my father’s service ten months
previously, and put on a sugar-plantation near
Baton Rouge. Not relishing the change, Sam had
run away, and by some mysterious agency got into
Canada, from which place he had sent back several
indecorous messages to his late owner. Aunt
Chloe was still in New Orleans, employed as nurse
in one of the cholera hospital wards, and the Des-
moulins, near neighbors of ours, had purchased
the pretty brick house among the orange-trees.

How all these simple details interested me will
be readily understood by any boy who has been
long absent from home.

I was sorry when it became necessary to discuss
questions more nearly affecting myself. I had been
removed from school temporarily, but it was de-
cided, after much consideration, that I should not
return, the decision being left, in a manner, in my
own hands.

The Captain wished to carry out his son’s inten-
tion and send me to college, as I was fully prepared
to undergo the preliminary examinations. This,
however, would have been a heavy drain on the
modest income reverting to my mother after the
settlement of my father’s estate, and the Captain
proposed to take the expense upon himself, not
seeing clearly what other disposal to make of me.

In the midst of our discussions a letter came
from my Uncle Snow, a merchant in New York,
generously offering me a place in his counting-
IN WHICH I LEAVE RIVERMOUTH 279

house. The case resolved itself into this: If I
went to college, I should have to devote several
years to my studies, and at the end of the collegi-
ate course would have no settled profession. If I
accepted my uncle’s offer, which could not stand
waiting, I should at once be in a comparatively
independent position. It was hard to give up the
long-cherished dream of being a Harvard boy ; but
I gave it up.

The decision once made, it was Uncle Snow’s
wish that I should enter his counting-house im-
mediately. The cause of my good uncle’s haste
was this: he was afraid that I would turn out to
be a poet before he could make a merchant of me.

His fears were based upon the fact that I had
published in the Rivermouth Barnacle some verses
addressed in a familiar manner “To the Moon.”
Now, the idea of a boy, with his living to get,
placing: himself in communication with the Moon,
struck the mercantile mind as monstrous. It was
not only a bad investment, it was lunacy.

We adopted Uncle Snow’s views so far as to
accede to his proposition forthwith. My mother,
I neglected to say, was also to reside in New
York.

I shall not draw a picture of Pepper Whitcomb’s
disgust when the news was imparted to him, nor
attempt to paint Sailor Ben’s distress at the pros-
pect of losing his little messmate.

In the excitement of preparing for the journey
280 ' THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

I did not feel any very deep regret myself. But
when the moment came for leaving, and I saw my
small trunk lashed up behind the carriage, then
the pleasantness of the old life and a vague dread
of the new came over me, and a mist filled my .
eyes, shutting out the group of schoolfellows, in-
cluding all the members of the Centipede Club,
who had come down to the house to see me off.

As the carriage swept round the corner, I leaned
out of the window to take a last look at Sailor
Ben’s cottage, and there was the Admiral’s flag
flying at half-mast.

So I left Rivermouth, little dreaming that I was
not to see the old place again for many and many
a year.
CHAPTER XXII
EXEUNT OMNES

Witu the close of my schooldays at Rivermouth
this modest chronicle ends.

The new life upon which I entered, the new
friends and foes I encountered on the road, and
what I did and what I did not, are matters that
do not come within the scope of these pages. But
before I write Finis to the record as it stands,
before I leave it —feeling as if I were once more
going away from my boyhood —I have a word or
two to say concerning a few of the personages
who have figured in the story, if you will allow me
to call Gypsy a personage.

I am sure that the reader who has followed me
thus far will be willing to hear what became of her,
and Sailor Ben and Miss Abigail and the Captain.

First about Gypsy. A month after my depar-
ture from Rivermouth the Captain informed me
by letter that he had parted with the little mare,
according to agreement. She had been sold to
the ring-master of a traveling circus (I had stipu-
lated on this disposal of her), and was about to set
out on her travels. She did not disappoint my
glowing anticipations, but became quite a celebrity
282 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

in her way, by dancing the polka to slow music on
a pine-board ball-room constructed for the purpose.

I chanced once, a long while afterwards, to be
in a country town where her troupe was giving
exhibitions; I even read the gaudily illumined
show-bill, setting forth the accomplishments of















THE FAR-FANED
ARABIAN
TRICK PONY |



FORMERLY OWNED ‘
THE PRINGE, (SH AZ ZAMAN WY
DAMAGOS -







— but failed to recognize my dear little mustang
girl behind those high-sounding titles, and so, alas!
did not attend the performance. I hope all the
EXEUNT OMNES 283

praises she received and all the spangled trappings
she wore did not spoil her; but I am afraid they
did, for she was always over much given to the
vanities of this world.

Miss Abigail regulated the domestic destinies of
my grandfather’s household until the day of her
death, which Dr. Theophilus Tredick solemnly
averred was hastened by the inveterate habit she
had contracted of swallowing unknown quantities
of hot-drops whenever she fancied herself out of
sorts. Eighty-seven empty phials were found in
a bonnet-box on a shelf in her bedroom closet.

The old house became very lonely when the
family got reduced to Captain Nutter and Kitty ;
and when Kitty passed away, my grandfather di-
vided his time between Rivermouth and New
York.

Sailor Ben did not long survive his little Irish
lass, as he always fondly called her. At his de-
mise, which took place about six years ago, he
left his property in trust to the managers of a
“Home for Aged Mariners.” In his will, which
was a very whimsical document — written by him-
self, and worded with much shrewdness, too —
he warned the Trustees that when he got “aloft”
he intended to keep his “ weather eye” on them,
and should send “a speritual shot across their
bows” and bring them to, if they didn’t treat the
Aged Mariners handsomely.

He also expressed a wish to have his body
284 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

stitched up in a shotted hammock and dropped into
the harbor; but as he did not strenuously insist
on this, and as it was not in accordance with my
grandfather’s preconceived notions of Christian
burial, the Admiral was laid to rest beside Kitty,
in the Old South Burying Ground, with an an-
chor that would have delighted him neatly carved
on his headstone.

I am sorry the fire has gone out in the old ship’s
stove in that sky-blue cottage at the head of the
wharf ; I am sorry they have taken down the flag-
staff and painted over the port-holes; for I loved
the old cabin as it was. They might have let it
alone !

For several months after leaving Rivermouth
I carried on a voluminous correspondence with
Pepper Whitcomb ; but it gradually dwindled down
to a single letter a month, and then to none at all.
But while he remained at the Temple Grammar
School he kept me advised of the current gossip
of the town and the doings of the Centipedes.

As one by one the boys left the academy —
Adams, Harris, Marden, Blake, and: Langdon —
to seek their fortunes elsewhere, there was less to
interest me in the old seaport ; and when Pepper
himself went to Philadelphia to read law, I had no
one to give me an inkling of what was going on.

There was not much to go on, to be sure.
Great events no longer considered it worth their
while to honor so quiet a place. One Fourth of
EXEUNT OMNES 285

July the Temple Grammar School burnt down —
set on fire, it was supposed, by an eccentric squib
that was seen to dart into an upper window — and
Mr. Grimshaw retired from public life, married,
‘‘and lived happily ever after,” as the story-books
say.

The Widow Conway, I am able to state, did not
succeed in enslaving Mr. Meeks, the apothecary,
who united himself clandestinely to one of Miss
Dorothy Gibbs’s young ladies, and lost the patron-
age of Primrose Hall in consequence.

Young Conway went into the grocery business
with his ancient chum, Rodgers — RopGErs &
Conway! I read the sign only last summer when
I was down in Rivermouth, and had half a mind to
pop into the shop and shake hands with him, and
ask him if he wanted to fight. I contented my-
self, however, with flattening my nose against his
dingy shop-window, and beheld Conway, in red
whiskers and blue overalls, weighing out sugar for
a customer— giving him short weight, I would
bet anything !

I have reserved my pleasantest word for the last.
It is touching the Captain. The Captain is still
hale and rosy, and if he does not relate his exploit
in the war of 1812 as spiritedly as he used to, he
makes up by relating it more frequently and tell-
ing it differently every time. He passes his win-
ters in New York and his summers in the Nutter
House, which threatens to prove a hard nut for
286 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

the destructive gentleman with the scythe and the
hour-glass, for the seaward gable has not yielded
a clapboard to the east wind these twenty years.
The Captain has now become the Oldest Inhab-
- itant in Rivermouth, and so I do not laugh at the
Oldest Inhabitant any more, but pray in my heart
that he may occupy the post of honor for half a
century to come !

So ends the Story of a Bad Boy — but not such
avery bad boy, as I told you to begin with.



SESE