Tom Newcombe; Or, the Boy of Bad Habits

“O now, I can’t learn this lesson, I know I can’t, and there’s no use in trying! I am the most unlucky boy in the whole world!”

Thus spoke Tom Newcombe, as he lay under one of the trees in his father’s yard, rolling about on the grass, and tossing his heels in the air, as if he scarcely knew what to do with himself.

Tom was not a happy boy, although all his playmates thought he ought to be. His father was the wealthiest man in the village--owned more than half the vessels that sailed from that port, and Tom lived in a large house, where he had every thing a boy of his age could ask for to make his life pass pleasantly. He owned the swiftest sail-boat about the village; had more fish-poles, foot-balls, and playthings of every description than he could possibly find use for; and, in the stable, was a fine little Shetland pony, which had been bought for Tom’s express benefit. But, in spite of his pleasant surroundings, the hero of our story was very discontented; his face always wore a gloomy expression, and he invariably acted as if he were angry about something.

Tom was about fourteen years of age, as smart as any boy in the village, and might have been of some use in the world, had it not been for his numerous bad habits, which kept him in constant trouble, and were the sole cause of all his unhappiness. One of these bad habits was carelessness. He thought it was too much trouble to carry out the motto he had so often heard--“A place for every thing and every thing in its place”--and the consequence was, he was not unfrequently compelled to waste half the day in searching for some article he happened to want. His cap, especially, was the source of a great deal of annoyance and vexation to him. For example, when he came in to his meals, he would take off his cap on entering the house, and throw it somewhere, not caring where it landed; and as soon as he was ready to go out of doors again, his first question--spoken in a slow, drawling tone, as if he were almost ready to drop down with fatigue--would be:

“Now, mother, where’s my cap?”

“I am sure I don’t know, my son,” would be the answer. “What did you do with it when you came in?”

“I hung it right here!” Tom would say, pointing to the hat-rack in the hall, or to a nail behind the door, which had been placed there for his especial benefit. “I know I hung it up, but it isn’t here now. I do wish folks would let my things alone! Something’s always bothering me!”

Then Tom would begin a search in all the rooms of the house, tumbling chairs about and moving tables and sofas, and the missing article would be found, sometimes in the “play-house,” sometimes under the bed, but more frequently under the trees in the yard, or on the portico.

We have spoken of Tom’s “play-house.” It was a room in the attic, nicely furnished, with carpet, tables, and chairs, and provided with a stove, so that he could be comfortable there in cold weather. In this room he kept his playthings, or rather, part of them. Those that were lost--and about half of them were missing--would have been found, some in the barn, others scattered about the yard, while the rest had been thrown under the house for safe keeping, where Tom could not get at them without soiling his clothes, and that was something he did not like to do. To have taken a single glance at the articles in his play-house, one would have thought that he ought never to have been at a loss to know how to employ himself; and that a single glance would also have been sufficient to convince any one that he never took the least care of what was given him. The only thing that ever interested Tom for any length of time, was a fine model of a ship, with sails and ropes complete, which an old sailor had given him, and which had been placed on a stand opposite the entrance to his play-house. But, having been carelessly mounted, it had fallen to the floor, and Tom, in one of his angry moods, had kicked it under the table, where it lay with its masts broken, and its sails torn, looking very much like a vessel that had been wrecked at sea. His playthings were scattered about the room in all directions. Foot-balls, bows and arrows, Chinese puzzles, base-ball bats, a magic lantern, models of vessels, fish poles, hats and boots were mixed up in the most complete confusion, and every article bore evidence to the fact that it had received the roughest usage. Indeed, there was but one thing in the room that was entire, and that was a little fire-engine--a birthday present from his mother. But then this had only come into Tom’s possession two days before the commencement of our story, and it was yet new to him.

Tom was always complaining that he never could find a thing when he wanted it; and no one about the house wondered at it in the least. To his mother’s oft-repeated inquiry why he did not put his room in order, and have a certain place for each particular thing, he would answer:

“O, now, I can’t; I haven’t got time. Let somebody else do it!”

Tom’s room, we ought to remark, was placed in perfect order every day, but it was only time and labor wasted; for, if he happened to want a fish-pole, or a ball bat, he would tumble the things about until he found the article in question, and then go out leaving the room in the greatest confusion.

Another bad trait in Tom’s character was his unconquerable pride. He was ashamed to work, and he would not do so if there was any possible way for him to avoid it. On a cold day, when it stormed too violently for him to go out of doors, he would remain in his room, with benumbed hands and chattering teeth, before he would take the trouble to build a fire. His father often asked him why he stayed there in the cold, and Tom replied: “O, there’s no wood up here!”

“Well, you know where the wood-shed is. Go and get some.”

“O, I can’t,” Tom would invariably answer. “Let somebody else go. It wouldn’t look well for me to do it.”

Once or twice during the previous winter, for some offense that he had committed, he was compelled to remove the snow from the side-walk in front of the house. On these occasions, Tom, being very much afraid of soiling his gloves, handled the shovel with the ends of his fingers, and when any one passed by, he hung his head as if he did not wish to be recognized. Work of any kind was the severest punishment that could be inflicted upon him. In his estimation, it was a disgrace that never could be wiped out.

Tom also had a bad habit of saying, “O, I can’t; I know I can’t, and what’s the use in trying?” This was his favorite expression--one that he made use of at all times, and upon all occasions. If his lesson was hard, instead of going manfully at work to learn it, he would read it over carelessly a few times; and if he failed to remember it, or if he found it more difficult than he had expected, he would throw down his book, exclaiming: “O, I can’t get it. It’s too hard. Something’s always bothering me;” and that was the end of it as far as he was concerned.

“Tom,” his father would say, when he heard the boy make use of this expression, “don’t you remember the words of the old song, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try--’”

But Tom, as soon as he found out what was coming, would interrupt him with--

“O, now, father, that’s all useless. What good does it do a fellow to try, when he knows he can’t succeed? It’s only time wasted. I’m quite sure the person who wrote that song never had any very hard things to do.”

At school, Tom never made any progress. Promised rewards or threatened punishments seldom had any lasting effect on him, and the result was, that all the boys of his age in the village soon left him far behind. He disliked very much to be beaten, and always wanted to be first in every thing; but even this failed to arouse him, and, as his school-mates termed it, he was “promoted backward,” until, at last, he found himself in a class with boys who were much younger than himself, but who, in spite of the difference in their ages, always had their lessons better than he. Finally, Mr. Newcombe, almost discouraged, took Tom out of school, and placed him under the charge of a private teacher, who lived at the mansion. When this change was made, Tom looked upon himself as a most fortunate boy; but he soon discovered a very disagreeable feature in the arrangement, and that was, his father was always in the school-room when he recited his lessons. This made Tom very uneasy. He did not wish to make a display of his ignorance before his father, and, besides, he knew that if the merchant took the matter into his own hands, something unpleasant would happen. On several occasions, he had assured Mr. Newcombe that he could recite his lessons much better if he were not present; but the latter, taking a different view of the case, was always at home during the recitations, and Tom had more than once been soundly scolded for his failures.

Tom was also sadly wanting in firmness of purpose. Like many boys of his age, he looked forward with impatience to the day when he should become a man; and the question that troubled him not a little, was, what should he do when he became his “own master,” as he termed it. He was full of what he considered to be glorious ideas, but, when he had determined to enter upon any particular calling, he always found something unpleasant in it. For instance, during the previous winter he had informed his father that it was his intention to become a sailor, and that nothing could induce him to change his mind. As usual with him, he wanted to begin at once, and he scarcely allowed his father a moment’s rest, teasing him from morning until night, for permission to go to sea on one of the vessels as cabin-boy. But Mr. Newcombe, who had once been a cabin-boy himself, and who knew what Tom would be compelled to endure, would not give his consent. He was not at all opposed to his son’s going to sea, for, having been a sailor himself, he looked upon a sea-faring man as a most useful and honorable member of society; but he knew that on ship-board, Tom’s uneasy, discontented disposition would keep him in constant trouble; and before he allowed him out of his sight he wanted him to abandon his bad habits. Besides, he did not wish his son to remain a foremast hand all his life, and he knew that if Tom wished to win promotion, he must first go to school and pay more attention to his books. So Mr. Newcombe told Tom that he could not go, and this made the boy very miserable indeed. Several of his playmates, who were much younger than himself, had been to sea on three or four voyages, and why couldn’t he go as well as any body? He could see no good reason for a refusal, and in order to punish his father for not allowing him to have his own way, he went into the sulks, and, for a day or two, scarcely spoke to any one. This was Tom’s favorite way of taking revenge on his father and mother, and no doubt it was the source of great satisfaction to him. But had he known how foolish he was, and how all the sensible boys of his acquaintance laughed at him, he might have taken some pains to conceal his ugly temper. He resolved that he would never abandon his idea of becoming a sailor, and every moment that he could snatch from school, was spent on the wharf, where he stood looking at the vessels, and wishing that he was his “own master,” so that he could do as he pleased. One night he took his stand on the wharf, and saw one of his father’s vessels towed into the harbor almost a wreck. Her foremast was gone, her deck and shrouds were coated with ice, her rigging all frozen, the sails useless, and those of the crew that were left, were in the most pitiable condition. This was an incident in the life of a sailor that had never entered into Tom’s calculations; and when he had seen the vessel moored at the wharf, and heard her captain tell his father that the crew, besides being badly frost-bitten, had been without food for two days, Tom started homeward, fully resolved that he would never follow the sea.