Harper's Round Table, December 22, 1896

JOHN HENRY.

BY MARY E. WILKINS.

Two days before Christmas John Henry sat on the top rail of the fence which separated the seven-acre lot from the oat-field. There were five rails in the fence, on account of two cows addicted to jumping being kept in the seven-acre lot, and consequently John Henry was perched at quite a dizzy height from the ground. His mother would have been exceedingly nervous had she seen him there. He was her only child; his two older brothers had died in infancy; he had himself been very delicate, and it had been hard work to rear him. The neighbors said that Martha Anne Lewis had brought up John Henry wrapped in cotton-wool under a glass shade, and that she believed him to be both sugar and salt as far as sun and rain were concerned. "Never lets him go out in the hot sun without an umbrella," said they, "and never lets him out at all on a rainy day--always keeps him at home, flattening his nose against the window-pane."

Poor John Henry's mother was afraid to have him climb trees or coast down hill, and he might never have enjoyed these boyish sports had it not been for his father. When he was quite small, his father took him out in the pine woods and taught him how to climb a tall tree.

"Don't you be afraid, sonny. A boy can't live in this world and not be picked on unless he can climb."

John Henry went to the top of the tree in triumph, and when his mother turned pale at the recital, his father only laughed.

"I'd have caught him if he'd fallen, Martha Anne," he said; "and John Henry has got to climb a tree, unless you want to set him up for a girl and done with it."

However, Mrs. Lewis stipulated that John Henry should not climb unless his father was with him, and also that he should not go coasting without him. The result was that until John Henry was twelve he had had very few boy-mates. He went to the district school, but that was only a quarter of a mile from his home, and he did not have to carry his dinner, and he always came straight home, because his mother was so anxious if he was late.

"Better humor your mother, sonny, and not stay to play with the boys, she gets so worried," his father told him.

So John Henry always trudged faithfully home, in spite of cajoling shouts, and sometimes taunts about being tied to mother's apron-strings. However, the taunts were rather cautiously given; John Henry, mother's boy though he was, had still a pretty spirit of his own, and his small fists were harder than they looked. Once or twice there had been a scuffle, in which he had not been worsted. His mother had chided and wept over him on his return, and held anxious consultations with the teachers and the other boys' mothers, but John Henry had gained his firm footing in school, in spite of his pink face, his smooth hair, his little ruffled shirts, and the cake and sugared doughnuts which he brought to eat at recess. None of the other boys brought such luncheons; indeed, the most of them were dependent upon spruce gum and the cores of their friends' apples, and none of them wore such fine clothes.

It was quite a grief to Mrs. Lewis that she could not exercise as much taste upon a son's personal adornment as she could have done upon a daughter's, but she did all she was able. John Henry wore ruffled shirts, and carried hem-stitched pocket-handkerchiefs, his mittens were knitted in fancy stitches, and he had little slippers with roses embroidered on the toes to wear in the house. She also feather-stitched his blue-jean overalls.

John Henry's father, who was a farmer, insisted that his son should learn to work on the farm, and his mother, though she would have preferred to have had him in the house with her making quilts and pin-cushions, had to consent. Every day John Henry was arrayed in overalls, and did his task in field and garden; but his mother feather-stitched the overalls with white linen thread, though all the neighbors laughed, and John Henry was privately ashamed of them. However, his father bade him humor poor mother, and he never objected to the decoration. John Henry wore the overalls now, for he had been working with his father all the morning. There was no school all the next week, on account of Christmas holidays. It was only a half-hour before noon--John Henry's father had sent him home, lest his mother should think he was working too long, and the boy had sat down on the fence to take an observation on the way. John Henry was rather given to pauses for reflection and observation upon his little way of life.

Although it was late in December, the day was quite mild; there was a warm haze in the horizon distances, and the wind blew in soft puffs from the south. John Henry had taken his jacket off--it lay on the ground beside the fence. He shrugged his blue-jean knees up to his chin, clasped his hands around them, and stared ahead with blue reflective eyes. He did not see a boy coming across the field; he did not even hear him whistle, though it was a loud pipe of "Marching through Georgia." He did not notice him until he had reached the fence and hailed with a gruff "Hullo!" Then he looked down and saw Jim Mills.

"Hullo!" responded John Henry.

Jim Mills was carrying a sack of potatoes; he let it slip to the ground, and leaned against the fence with a sigh.

"Heavy?" inquired John Henry.

"Try it an' see."

"Where did you bring it from?"

"Thatcher's. Thought I'd come across lots, 'cause it was shorter. Where you been?"

"Been workin' in the wood-lot."

Jim Mills looked mournfully at the potato-sack. "I've got to be goin'," said he. "Mother wants these for dinner."

John Henry jumped down from the fence and gave the sack a manful tug from the ground. "I'll carry it as far as my house," said he.

"You can't."

"Can, too."

The two boys moved on across the old plough ridges of the field, John Henry a little in the rear, swung sideways by the potato-bag like a ship by its anchor.

"Going to the tree Tuesday night?" he panted, presently.

"Ketch me!" responded Jim Mills, surlily.

"Why ain't you going?"

"What would I be going for, I'd like to know?"

"There's going to be a Christmas tree, an' you'll have something."

"What'll I have?" demanded Jim Mills, fiercely.

He turned around in the cart path and faced John Henry. He was a thin boy, very small for his age, with a fringe of pale hair blowing under his old cap, over big gray eyes sunken in pathetic hollows. Many people thought that Jim Mills looked as if he did not have enough to eat.

"What d'yer s'pose I had last year?" asked he.

John Henry shook his head.

"Well, I'll tell you. I had a candy-bag and an orange and a girl's book from the teacher. She said she was sorry there wasn't enough boys' books to go round. When I got home I gave the candy-bag to the baby, and the orange to little Hattie and 'Melia, and 'Liza Ann she had the book. I ain't going to any more Christmas trees."

"Maybe you'll get something more this year," ventured John Henry, feebly.

"Where'll I get it? Tell me that, will you? Father an' mother can't give me anything. There's nobody but the teacher. Reckon I'll get another girl's book from her, an' then I'll have the candy-bag an' the orange, same as all the others, out of the school money. What would you think, John Henry Lewis, if that was all you was goin' to have?"

John Henry shook his head vaguely.

"Guess you wouldn't go to the Christmas tree any more than some other folks," said Jim Mills. "There you've got your father and your mother, and your uncle Joe and your aunt Jane, and your aunt Louisa and your grandfather and grandmother Lewis and your grandmother Atkins, to bring presents to the tree for you. How'd you feel if you had to go there and hark for your name to be called, and hear it: 'John Henry Lewis'--then you march out before 'em all and git a little candy-bag; 'John Henry Lewis'--then you march out and get an orange; 'John Henry Lewis'--then you march out and get a girl's book, and all of them things that everybody else has? Guess you'd be ashamed to go to Christmas trees as much as me. If your folks be poor and can't have things, I guess you don't want to tell of it before everybody."

Jim Mills turned about and went on with a defiant stride; John Henry followed, tugging the potato-sack. When the boys reached the house his mother called out of the window to set it down directly, he would lame his shoulders, and Jim Mills flushed all over his little pinched face.