ADVENTURES OF JIMMY BROWN.
MR. MARTIN'S GAME.
What if he is a great deal older than I am! that doesn't give him any right to rumple my hair, does it? I'm willing to respect old age, of course, but I want my hair respected too.
But rumpling hair isn't enough for Mr. Martin; he must call me "Bub," and "Sonny." I might stand "Sonny," but I won't stand being called "Bub" by any living man--not if I can help it. I've told him three or four times "My name isn't 'Bub,' Mr. Martin. My name's Jim, or Jimmy," but he would just grin in an exhausperating kind of way, and keep on calling me "Bub."
My sister Sue doesn't like him any better than I do. He comes to see her about twice a week, and I've heard her say, "Goodness me there's that tiresome old bachelor again." But she treats him just as polite as she does anybody; and when he brings her candy, she says, "Oh Mr. Martin you are too good." There's a great deal of make-believe about girls, I think.
Now that I've mentioned candy, I will say that he might pass it around, but he never thinks of such a thing. Mr. Travers, who is the best of all Sue's young men, always brings candy with him, and gives me a lot. Then he generally gives me a quarter to go to the post-office for him, because he forgot to go, and expects something very important. It takes an hour to go to the post-office and back, but I'd do anything for such a nice man.
One night--it was Mr. Travers's regular night--Mr. Martin came, and wasn't Sue mad! She knew Mr. Travers would come in about half an hour, and she always made it a rule to keep her young men separate.
She sent down word that she was busy, and would be down-stairs after a while. Would Mr. Martin please sit down and wait. So he sat down on the front piazza and waited.
I was sitting on the grass, practising mumble-te-peg a little, and by-and-by Mr. Martin says, "Well, Bub, what are you doing?"
"Playing a game," says I. "Want to learn it?"
"Well, I don't care if I do," says he. So he came out and sat on the grass, and I showed him how to play.
Just then Mr. Travers arrived, and Sue came down, and was awfully glad to see both her friends. "But what in the world are you doing?" she says to Mr. Martin. When she heard that he was learning the game, she said, "How interesting do play one game."
Mr. Martin finally said he would. So we played a game, and I let him beat me very easy. He laughed lit to kill himself when I drew the peg, and said it was the best game he ever played.
"Is there any game you play any better than this, Sonny?" said he, in his most irragravating style.
"Let's have another game," said I. "Only you must promise to draw the peg fair, if I beat you."
"All right," said he. "I'll draw the peg if you beat me, Bub."
O, he felt so sure he was a first-class player. I don't like a conceited man, no matter if he is only a boy.
You can just imagine how quick I beat him. Why, I went right through to "both ears" without stopping, and the first time I threw the knife over my head it stuck in the ground.
I cut a beautiful peg out of hard wood--one of those sharp, slender pegs that will go through anything but a stone. I drove it in clear out of sight, and Mr. Martin, says he, "Why, Sonny, nobody couldn't possibly draw that peg."
"I've drawn worse pegs than that," said I. "You've got to clear away the earth with your chin and front teeth, and then you can draw it."
"That is nonsense," said Mr. Martin, growing red in the face.
"This is a fair and square game," says I, "and you gave your word to draw the peg if I beat you."
"I do hope Mr. Martin will play fair," said Sue. "It would be too bad to cheat a little boy."
So Mr. Martin got down and tried it, but he didn't like it one bit. "See here, Jimmy," said he, "I'll give you half a dollar, and we'll consider the peg drawn."
"That is bribery and corruption," said I. "Mr. Martin, I can't be bribed, and didn't think you'd try to hire me to let you break your promise."
When he saw I wouldn't let up on him, he got down again and went to work.
It was the best fun I ever knew. I just rolled on the ground and laughed till I cried. Sue and Mr. Travers didn't roll, but they laughed till Sue got up and ran into the house, where I could hear her screaming on the front-parlor sofa, and mother crying out, "My darling child where does it hurt you won't you have the doctor Jane do bring the camphor."
Mr. Martin gnawed away at the earth, and used swear-words to himself, and was perfectly raging. After a while he got the peg, and then he got up with his face about the color of a flower-pot, and put on his hat and went out of the front gate rubbing his face with his handkerchief, and never so much as saying good-night. He didn't come near the house again for two weeks.
Mr. Travers gave me a half-dollar to go to the post-office to make up for the one I had refused, and told me that I had displayed roaming virtue, though I don't know exactly what he meant.
He looked over this story, and corrected the spelling for me, only it is to be a secret that he helped me. I'd do almost anything for him, and I'm going to ask Sue to marry him just to please me.
MR. MARTIN'S SCALP.
After that game of mumble-te-peg that me and Mr. Martin played, he did not come to our house for two weeks. Mr. Travers said perhaps the earth he had to gnaw while he was drawing the peg had struck to his insides and made him sick, but I knew it couldn't be that. I've drawn pegs that were drove into every kind of earth, and it never hurt me. Earth is healthy, unless it is lime; and don't you ever let anybody drive a peg into lime. If you were to swallow the least bit of lime, and then drink some water, it would burn a hole through you just as quick as anything. There was once a boy who found some lime in the closet, and thought it was sugar, and of course he didn't like the taste of it. So he drank some water to take the taste out of his mouth, and pretty soon his mother said, "I smell something burning goodness gracious the house is on fire." But the boy he gave a dreadful scream, and said, "Ma, it's me!" and the smoke curled up out of his pockets and around his neck, and he burned up and died. I know this is true, because Tom McGinnis went to school with him, and told me about it.
Mr. Martin came to see Susan last night for the first time since we had our game; and I wish he had never come back, for he got me into an awful scrape. This was the way it happened. I was playing Indian in the yard. I had a wooden tomahawk and a wooden scalping-knife and a bownarrow. I was dressed up in father's old coat turned inside out, and had six chicken feathers in my hair. I was playing I was Green Thunder, the Delaware chief, and was hunting for pale-faces in the yard. It was just after supper, and I was having a real nice time, when Mr. Travers came, and he said, "Jimmy, what are you up to now?" So I told him I was Green Thunder, and was on the war-path. Said he, "Jimmy, I think I saw Mr. Martin on his way here. Do you think you would mind scalping him?" I said I wouldn't scalp him for nothing, for that would be cruelty; but if Mr. Travers was sure that Mr. Martin was the enemy of the red man, then Green Thunder's heart would ache for revenge, and I would scalp him with pleasure. Mr. Travers said that Mr. Martin was a notorious enemy and oppressor of the Indians, and he gave me ten cents, and said that as soon as Mr. Martin should come and be sitting comfortably on the piazza, I was to give the warwhoop and scalp him.
Well, in a few minutes Mr. Martin came, and he and Mr. Travers and Susan sat on the piazza, and talked as if they were all so pleased to see each other, which was the highest-pocracy in the world. After a while Mr. Martin saw me, and said, "How silly boys are! that boy makes believe he's an Indian, and he knows he's only a little nuisance." Now this made me mad, and I thought I would give him a good scare, just to teach him not to call names if a fellow does beat him in a fair game. So I began to steal softly up the piazza steps, and to get around behind him. When I had got about six feet from him I gave a warwhoop, and jumped at him. I caught hold of his scalp-lock with one hand, and drew my wooden scalping-knife around his head with the other.
I never got such a fright in my whole life. The knife was that dull that it wouldn't have cut butter; but, true as I sit here, Mr. Martin's whole scalp came right off in my hand. I thought I had killed him, and I dropped his scalp, and said, "For mercy's sake! I didn't go to do it, and I'm awfully sorry." But he just caught up his scalp, stuffed it in his pocket, and jammed his hat on his head, and walked off, saying to Susan, "I didn't come here to be insulted by a little wretch that deserves the gallows."
Mr. Travers and Susan never said a word until he had gone, and then they laughed until the noise brought father out to ask what was the matter. When he heard what had happened, instead of laughing, he looked very angry, said that "Mr. Martin was a worthy man. My son, you may come up-stairs with me."
If you've ever been a boy, you know what happened up-stairs, and I needn't say any more on a very painful subject. I didn't mind it so much, for I thought Mr. Martin would die, and then I would be hung, and put in jail; but before she went to bed Susan came and whispered through the door that it was all right; that Mr. Martin was made that way, so he could be taken apart easy, and that I hadn't hurt him. I shall have to stay in my room all day to-day, and eat bread and water; and what I say is that if men are made with scalps that may come off any minute if a boy just touches them, it isn't fair to blame the boy.
A PRIVATE CIRCUS.
There's going to be a circus here, and I'm going to it; that is, if father will let me. Some people think it's wrong to go to a circus, but I don't. Mr. Travers says that the mind of man and boy requires circuses in moderation, and that the wicked boys in Sunday-school books who steal their employers' money to buy circus tickets wouldn't steal it if their employers, or their fathers or uncles, would give them circus tickets once in a while. I'm sure I wouldn't want to go to a circus every night in the week. All I should want would be to go two or three evenings, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. There was once a boy who was awfully fond of going to the circus, and his employer, who was a very good man, said he'd cure him. So he said to the boy, "Thomas, my son, I'm going to hire you to go to the circus every night. I'll pay you three dollars a week, and give you your board and lodging, if you'll go every night except Sunday; but if you don't go, then you won't get any board and lodging or any money." And the boy said, "Oh, you can just bet I'll go!" and he thought everything was lovely; but after two weeks he got so sick of the circus that he would have given anything to be let to stay away. Finally he got so wretched that he deceived his good employer, and stole money from him to buy school-books with, and ran away and went to school. The older he grew the more he looked back with horror upon that awful period when he went to the circus every night. Mr. Travers says it finally had such an effect upon him that he worked hard all day and read books all night just to keep it out of his mind. The result was that before he knew it he became a very learned and a very rich man. Of course it was very wrong for the boy to steal money to stay away from the circus with, but the story teaches us that if we go to the circus too much, we shall get tired of it, which is a very solemn thing.
