Chapter III: Part 3

I went to the store and ordered the salt, and then had a game or two of ball with the boys, and didn't get home till late in the afternoon. There was Sue freezing the ice-cream, and suffering dreadfully, so she said. She had to go and dress right away, and told me to keep turning the ice-cream freezer till it froze and don't run off and leave me to do everything again you good-for-nothing boy I wonder how you can do it.

I turned that freezer for ever so long, but nothing would freeze; so I made up my mind that it wanted more salt. I didn't want to disturb anybody, so I quietly went into the kitchen and got the salt-cellar, and emptied it into the ice-cream. It began to freeze right away; but I tasted it, and it was awfully salt, so I got the jug of golden sirup and poured about a pint into the ice-cream, and when it was done it was a beautiful straw-color.

But there was an awful scene when the party tried to eat that ice-cream. Sue handed it round, and said to everybody, "This is my ice-cream, and you must be sure to like it." The first one she gave it to was Dr. Porter. He is dreadfully fond of ice-cream, and he smiled such a big smile, and said he was sure it was delightful, and took a whole spoonful. Then he jumped up as if something had bit him, and went out of the door in two jumps, and we didn't see him again. Then three more men tasted their ice-cream, and jumped up, and ran after the doctor, and two girls said, "Oh my!" and held their handkerchiefs over their faces, and turned just as pale. And then everybody else put their ice-cream down on the table, and said thank you they guessed they wouldn't take any. The party was regularly spoiled, and when I tasted the ice-cream I didn't wonder. It was worse than the best kind of strong medicine.

Sue was in a dreadful state of mind, and when the party had gone home--all but one man, who lay under the apple-tree all night and groaned like he was dying, only we thought it was cats--she made me tell her all about the salt and the golden sirup. She wouldn't believe that I had tried to do my best, and didn't mean any harm. Father took her part, and said I ought to eat some of the ice-cream, since I made it; but I said I'd rather go up-stairs with him. So I went.

Some of these days people will begin to understand that they are just wasting and throwing away a boy who always tries to do his best, and perhaps they'll be sorry when it is too late.

MY PIG.

I don't say that I didn't do wrong, but what I do say is that I meant to do right. But that don't make any difference. It never does. I try to do my very best, and then something happens, and I am blamed for it. When I think what a disappointing world this is, full of bamboo-canes and all sorts of switches, I feel ready to leave it.

It was Sue's fault in the beginning; that is, if it hadn't been for her it wouldn't have happened. One Sunday she and I were sitting in the front parlor, and she was looking out of the window and watching for Mr. Travers; only she said she wasn't, and that she was just looking to see if it was going to rain, and solemnizing her thoughts. I had just asked her how old she was, and couldn't Mr. Travers have been her father if he had married mother, when she said, "Dear me how tiresome that boy is do take a book and read for gracious sake." I said, "What book?" So she gets up and gives me the _Observer_, and says, "There's a beautiful story about a good boy and a pig do read it and keep still if you know how and I hope it will do you some good."

Well, I read the story. It told all about a good boy whose name was James, and his father was poor, and so he kept a pig that cost him twenty-five cents, and when it grew up he sold it for thirty dollars, and he brought the money to his father and said, "Here father! take this O how happy I am to help you when you're old and not good for much," and his father burst into tears, but I don't know what for. I wouldn't burst into tears much if anybody gave me thirty dollars; and said, "Bless you my noble boy you and your sweet pig have saved me from a watery grave," or something like that.

It was a real good story, and it made me feel like being likewise. So I resolved that I would get a little new pig for twenty-five cents, and keep it till it grew up, and then surprise father with twenty-nine dollars, and keep one for myself as a reward for my good conduct. Only I made up my mind not to let anybody know about it till after the pig should be grown up, and then how the family would be delighted with my "thoughtful and generous act!" for that's what the paper said James's act was.

The next day I went to Farmer Smith, and got him to give me a little pig for nothing, only I agreed to help him weed his garden all summer. It was a beautiful pig, about as big as our baby, only it was a deal prettier, and its tail was elegant. I wrapped it up in an old shawl, and watched my chance and got it up into my room, which is on the third story. Then I took my trunk and emptied it, and bored some holes in it for air, and put the pig in it.

I had the best fun that ever was, all that day and the next day, taking care of that dear little pig. I gave him one of my coats for a bed, and fed him on milk, and took him out of the trunk every little while for exercise. Nobody goes into my room very often, except the girl to make the bed, and when she came I shut up the trunk, and she never suspected anything. I got a whole coal-scuttleful of the very best mud, and put it in the corner of the room for him to play in, and when I heard Bridget coming, I meant to throw the bedquilt over it, so she wouldn't suspect anything.

After I had him two days I heard mother say, "Seems to me I hear very queer noises every now and then up-stairs." I knew what the matter was, but I never said anything, and I felt so happy when I thought what a good boy I was to raise a pig for my dear father.

Bridget went up to my room about eight o'clock one evening, just before I was going to bed, to take up my clean clothes. We were all sitting in the dining-room, when we heard her holler as if she was being murdered. We all ran out to see what was the matter, and were half-way up the stairs when the pig came down and upset the whole family, and piled them up on the top of himself at the foot of the stairs, and before we got up Bridget came down and fell over us, and said she had just opened the young masther's thrunk and out jumps the ould Satan himself and she must see the priest or she would be a dead woman.

You wouldn't believe that, though I told them that I was raising the pig to sell it and give the money to father, they all said that they had never heard of such an abandoned and peremptory boy, and father said, "Come up-stairs with me and I'll see if I can't teach you that this house isn't a pig-pen." I don't know what became of the pig, for he broke the parlor window and ran away, and nobody ever heard of him again.

I'd like to see that boy James. I don't care how big he is. I'd show him that he can't go on setting good examples to innocent boys without suffering as he deserves to suffer.

GOING TO BE A PIRATE.

I don't know if you are acquainted with Tom McGinnis. Everybody knows his father, for he's been in Congress, though he is a poor man, and sells hay and potatoes, and I heard father say that Mr. McGinnis is the most remarkable man in the country. Well, Tom is Mr. McGinnis's boy, and he's about my age, and thinks he's tremendously smart; and I used to think so too, but now I don't think quite so much of him. He and I went away to be pirates the other day, and I found out that he will never do for a pirate.

You see, we had both got into difficulties. It wasn't my fault, I am sure, but it's such a painful subject that I won't describe it. I will merely say that after it was all over, I went to see Tom to tell him that it was no use to put shingles under your coat, for how is that going to do your legs any good, and I tried it because Tom advised me to. I found that he had just had a painful scene with his father on account of apples; and I must say it served him right, for he had no business to touch them without permission. So I said, "Look here, Tom, what's the use of our staying at home and being laid onto with switches and our best actions misunderstood and our noblest and holiest emotions held up to ridicule?" That's what I heard a young man say to Sue one day, but it was so beautiful that I said it to Tom myself.

"Oh, go 'way," said Tom.

"That's what I say," said I. "Let's go away and be pirates. There's a brook that runs through Deacon Sammis's woods, and it stands to reason that it must run into the Spanish Main, where all the pirates are. Let's run away, and chop down a tree, and make a canoe, and sail down the brook till we get to the Spanish Main, and then we can capture a schooner, and be regular pirates."

"Hurrah!" says Tom. "We'll do it. Let's run away to-night. I'll take father's hatchet, and the carving-knife, and some provisions, and meet you back of our barn at ten o'clock."

"I'll be there," said I. "Only, if we're going to be pirates, let's be strictly honest. Don't take anything belonging to your father. I've got a hatchet, and a silver knife with my name on it, and I'll save my supper and take it with me."

So that night I watched my chance, and dropped my supper into my handkerchief, and stuffed it into my pocket. When ten o'clock came, I tied up my clothes in a bundle, and took my hatchet and the silver knife and some matches, and slipped out the back door, and met Tom. He had nothing with him but his supper and a backgammon board and a bag of marbles. We went straight for the woods, and after we'd selected a big tree to cut down, we ate our supper. Just then the moon went under a cloud, and it grew awfully dark. We couldn't see very well how to chop the tree, and after Tom had cut his fingers, we put off cutting down the tree till morning, and resolved to build a fire. We got a lot of fire-wood, but I dropped the matches, and when we found them again they were so damp that they wouldn't light.

All at once the wind began to blow, and made a dreadful moaning in the woods. Tom said it was bears, and that though he wanted to be a pirate, he hadn't calculated on having any bears. Then he said it was cold, and so it was, but I told him that it would be warm enough when we got to the Spanish Main, and that pirates ought not to mind a little cold.

Pretty soon it began to rain, and then Tom began to cry. It just poured down, and the way our teeth chattered was terrible. By-and-by Tom jumped up, and said he wasn't going to be eaten up by bears and get an awful cold, and he started on a run for home. Of course I wasn't going to be a pirate all alone, for there wouldn't be any fun in that, so I started after him. He must have been dreadfully frightened, for he ran as fast as he could, and as I was in a hurry, I tried to catch up with him. If he hadn't tripped over a root, and I hadn't tripped over him, I don't believe I could have caught him. When I fell on him, you ought to have heard him yell. He thought I was a bear, but any sensible pirate would have known I wasn't.

Tom left me at his front gate, and said he had made up his mind he wouldn't be a pirate, and that it would be a great deal more fun to be a plumber and melt lead. I went home, and as the house was locked up, I had to ring the front-door bell. Father came to the door himself, and when he saw me, he said, "Jimmy, what in the world does this mean?" So I told him that Tom and me had started for the Spanish Main to be pirates, but Tom had changed his mind, and that I thought I'd change mine too.

Father had me put to bed, and hot bottles and things put in the bed with me, and before I went to sleep, he came and said, "Good-night, Jimmy. We'll try and have more fun at home, so that there won't be any necessity of your being a pirate." And I said, "Dear father, I'd a good deal rather stay with you, and I'll never be a pirate without your permission."

This is why I say that Tom McGinnis will never make a good pirate. He's too much afraid of getting wet.

RATS AND MICE.

It's queer that girls are so dreadfully afraid of rats and mice. Men are never afraid of them, and I shouldn't mind if there were mornamillion mice in my bedroom every night.

Mr. Travers told Sue and me a terrible story one day about a woman that was walking through a lonely field, when she suddenly saw a field-mouse right in front of her. She was a brave woman; so after she had said, "Oh my! save me, somebody!" she determined to save herself if she could, for there was nobody within miles of her. There was a tree not very far off, and she had just time to climb up the tree and seat herself in the branches, when the mouse reached its foot. There that animal stayed for six days and nights, squeaking in a way that made the woman's blood run cold, and waiting for her to come down. On the seventh day, when she was nearly exhausted, a man with a gun came along, and shot the mouse, and saved her life. I don't believe this story, and I told Mr. Travers so; for a woman couldn't climb a tree, and even if she could, what would hinder the mouse from climbing after her?

Sue has a new young man, who comes every Monday and Wednesday night. One day he said, "Jimmy, if you'll get me a lock of your sister's hair, I'll give you a nice dog." I told him he was awfully kind, but I didn't think it would be honest for me to take Sue's best hair, but that I'd try to get him some of her every-day hair. And he said, "What on earth do you mean, Jimmy?" And I said that Sue had got some new back hair a little while ago, for I was with her when she bought it, and I knew she wouldn't like me to take any of that. So he said it was no matter, and he'd give me the dog anyway.

I told Sue afterwards all about it, just to show her how honest I was, and instead of telling me I was a good boy, she said, "Oh you little torment g'way and never let me see you again," and threw herself down on the sofa and howled dreadfully, and mother came and said, "Jimmy, if you want to kill your dear sister, you can just keep on doing as you do." Such is the gratitude of grown-up folks.

Mr. Withers--that's the new young man--brought the dog, as he said he would. He's a beautiful Scotch terrier, and he said he would kill rats like anything, and was two years old, and had had the distemper; that is, Mr. Withers said the dog would kill rats, and of course Mr. Withers himself never had the distemper.

Of course I wanted to see the dog kill rats, so I took him to a rat-hole in the kitchen, but he barked at it so loud that no rat would think of coming out. If you want to catch rats, you mustn't begin by barking and scratching at rat-holes, but you must sit down and kind of wink with one eye and lay for them, just as cats do. I told Mr. Withers that the dog couldn't catch any rats, and he said he would bring me some in a box, and I could let them out, and the dog would kill every single one of them.

The next evening Sue sent me down to the milliner's to bring her new bonnet home, and don't you be long about it either you idle worthless boy. Well, I went to the milliner's shop, but the bonnet wasn't done yet; and as I passed Mr. Withers's office, he said, "Come here, Jimmy; I've got those rats for you." He gave me a wooden box like a tea-chest, and told me there were a dozen rats in it, and I'd better have the dog kill them at once, or else they'd gnaw out before morning.

When I got home, Sue met me at the door, and said, "Give me that bandbox this instant you've been mornanour about it." I tried to tell her that it wasn't her box; but she wouldn't listen, and just snatched it and went into the parlor, where there were three other young ladies who had come to see her, and slammed the door; but the dog slipped in with her.

In about a minute I heard the most awful yells that anybody ever heard. It sounded as if all the furniture in the parlor was being smashed into kindling wood, and the dog kept barking like mad. The next minute a girl came flying out of the front window, and another girl jumped right on her before she had time to get out of the way, and they never stopped crying, "Help murder let me out oh my!"

I knew, of course, that Sue had opened the box and let the rats out, and though I wanted ever so much to know if the dog had killed them all, I thought she would like it better if I went back to the milliner's and waited a few hours for the bonnet.

I brought it home about nine o'clock; but Sue had gone to bed, and the servant had just swept up the parlor, and piled the pieces of furniture on the piazza. Father won't be home till next week, and perhaps by that time Sue will get over it. I wish I did know if the dog killed all those rats, and how long it took him.

HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS.

We ought always to be useful, and do good to everybody. I used to think that we ought always to improve our minds, and I think so some now, though I have got into dreadful difficulties all through improving my mind. But I am not going to be discouraged. I tried to be useful the other day, and do good to the heathen in distant lands, and you wouldn't believe what trouble it made. There are some people who would never do good again if they had got into the trouble that I got into; but the proverb says that if at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again; and there was lots of crying, I can tell you, over our rhinoceros, that we thought was going to do so much good.

It all happened because Aunt Eliza was staying at our house. She had a Sunday-school one afternoon, and Tom McGinnis and I were the scholars, and she told us about a boy that got up a panorama about the _Pilgrim's Progress_ all by himself, and let people see it for ten cents apiece, and made ten dollars, and sent it to the missionaries, and they took it and educated mornahundred little heathens with it, and how nice it would be if you dear boys would go and do likewise and now we'll sing "Hold the Fort."

Well, Tom and I thought about it, and we said we'd get up a menagerie, and we'd take turns playing animals, and we'd let folks see it for ten cents apiece, and make a lot of money, and do ever so much good.

We got a book full of pictures of animals, and we made skins out of cloth to go all over us, so that we'd look just like animals when we had them on. We had a lion's and a tiger's and a bear's and a rhinoceros's skin, besides a whole lot of others. As fast as we got the skins made, we hung them up in a corner of the barn where nobody would see them. The way we made them was to show the pictures to mother and to Aunt Eliza, and they did the cutting out and the sewing, and Sue she painted the stripes on the tiger, and the fancy touches on the other animals.

Our rhinoceros was the best animal we had. The rhinoceros is a lovely animal when he's alive. He is almost as big as an elephant, and he has a skin that is so thick that you can't shoot a bullet through it unless you hit it in a place that is a little softer than the other places. He has a horn on the end of his nose, and he can toss a tiger with it till the tiger feels sick, and says he won't play any more. The rhinoceros lives in Africa, and he would toss 'most all the natives if it wasn't that they fasten an India-rubber ball on the end of his horn, so that when he tries to toss anybody, the horn doesn't hurt, and after a while the rhinoceros gets discouraged, and says, "Oh, well, what's the good anyhow?" and goes away into the forest. At least this is what Mr. Travers says, but I don't believe it; for the rhinoceros wouldn't stand still and let the natives put an India-rubber ball on his horn, and they wouldn't want to waste India-rubber balls that way when they could play lawn-tennis with them.

Last Saturday afternoon we had our first grand consolidated exhibition of the greatest menagerie on earth. We had two rows of chairs in the back yard, and all our folks and all Tom's folks came, and we took in a dollar and sixty cents at the door, which was the back gate.

I was a bear, first of all, and growled so natural that everybody said it was really frightful. Then it was Tom's turn to be an animal, and he was to be the raging rhinoceros of Central Africa. I helped dress him in the barn, and when he was dressed he looked beautiful.

The rhinoceros's skin went all over him, and was tied together so that he couldn't get out of it without help. His horn was made of wood painted white, and his eyes were two agates. Of course he couldn't see through them, but they looked natural, and as I was to lead him, he didn't need to see.

I had just got him outside the barn, and had begun to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the raging rhinoceros," when he gave the most awful yell you ever heard, and got up on his hind-legs, and began to rush around as if he was crazy. He rushed against Aunt Eliza, and upset her all over the McGinnis girls, and then he banged up against the water-barrel, and upset that, and then he fell into the hot-bed, and broke all the glass. You never saw such an awful sight. The rhinoceros kept yelling all the time, only nobody could understand what he said, and pulling at his head with his fore-paws, and jumping up and down, and smashing everything in his way, and I went after him just as if I was a Central African hunting a rhinoceros.

I was almost frightened, and as for the folks, they ran into the house, all except Aunt Eliza, who had to be carried in. I kept as close behind the rhinoceros as I could, begging him to be quiet, and tell me what was the matter. After a while he lay down on the ground, and I cut the strings of his skin, so that he could get his head out and talk.

He said he was 'most dead. The wasps had built a nest in one of his hind-legs as it was hanging in the barn, and they had stung him until they got tired. He said he'd never have anything more to do with the menagerie, and went home with his mother, and my mother said I must give him all the money, because he had suffered so much.

But, as I said, I won't be discouraged, and will try to do good, and be useful to others the next time I see a fair chance.

DOWN CELLAR.

We have had a dreadful time at our house, and I have done very wrong. Oh, I always admit it when I've done wrong. There's nothing meaner than to pretend that you haven't done wrong when everybody knows you have. I didn't mean anything by it, though, and Sue ought to have stood by me, when I did it all on her account, and just because I pitied her, if she was my own sister, and it was more her fault, I really think, than it was mine.

Mr. Withers is Sue's new young man, as I have told you already. He comes to see her every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, and Mr. Travers comes all the other evenings, and Mr. Martin is liable to come any time, and generally does--that is, if he doesn't have the rheumatism. Though he hasn't but one real leg, he has twice as much rheumatism as father, with all his legs, and there is something very queer about it; and if I was he, I'd get a leg of something better than cork, and perhaps he'd have less pain in it.

It all happened last Tuesday night. Just as it was getting dark, and Sue was expecting Mr. Travers every minute, who should come in but Mr. Martin! Now Mr. Martin is such an old acquaintance, and father thinks so much of him, that Sue had to ask him in, though she didn't want him to meet Mr. Travers. So when she heard somebody open the front gate, she said, "Oh, Mr. Martin I'm so thirsty and the servant has gone out, and you know just where the milk is for you went down cellar to get some the last time you were here do you think you would mind getting some for me?" Mr. Martin had often gone down cellar to help himself to milk, and I don't see what makes him so fond of it, so he said, "Certainly with great pleasure," and started down the cellar stairs.

It wasn't Mr. Travers, but Mr. Withers, who had come on the wrong night. He had not much more than got into the parlor when Sue came rushing out to me, for I was swinging in the hammock on the front piazza, and said, "My goodness gracious Jimmy what shall I do here's Mr. Withers and Mr. Travers will be here in a few minutes and there's Mr. Martin down cellar and I feel as if I should fly what shall I do?"

I was real sorry for her, and thought I'd help her, for girls are not like us. They never know what to do when they are in a scrape, and they are full of absence of mind when they ought to have lots of presence of mind. So I said: "I'll fix it for you, Sue. Just leave it all to me. You stay here and meet Mr. Travers, who is just coming around the corner, and I'll manage Mr. Withers." Sue said, "You darling little fellow there don't muss my hair;" and I went in, and said to Mr. Withers, in an awfully mysterious way, "Mr. Withers, I hear a noise in the cellar. Don't tell Sue, for she's dreadfully nervous. Won't you go down and see what it is?" Of course I knew it was Mr. Martin who was making the noise, though I didn't say so.

"Oh, it's nothing but rats, Jimmy," said he, "or else the cat, or maybe it's the cook."

"No, it isn't," said I. "If I was you, I'd go and see into it. Sue thinks you're awfully brave."

Well, after a little more talk, Mr. Withers said he'd go, and I showed him the cellar-door, and got him started down-stairs, and then I locked the door, and went back to the hammock, and Sue and Mr. Travers they sat in the front parlor.

Pretty soon I heard a heavy crash down cellar; as if something heavy had dropped, and then there was such a yelling and howling, just as if the cellar was full of murderers. Mr. Travers jumped up, and was starting for the cellar, when Sue fainted away, and hung tight to him, and wouldn't let him go.

I stayed in the hammock, and wouldn't have left it if father hadn't come down-stairs, but when I saw him going down cellar, I went after him to see what could possibly be the matter.

Father had a candle in one hand and a big club in another. You ought to have been there to see Mr. Martin and Mr. Withers. One of them had run against the other in the dark, and they thought they were both burglars. So they got hold of each other, and fell over the milk-pans and upset the soap-barrel, and then rolled round the cellar floor, holding on to each other, and yelling help murder thieves, and when we found them, they were both in the ash-bin, and the ashes were choking them.

Father would have pounded them with the club if I hadn't told him who they were. He was awfully astonished, and though he wouldn't say anything to hurt Mr. Martin's feelings, he didn't seem to care much for mine or Mr. Withers's, and when Mr. Travers finally came down, father told him that he was a nice young man, and that the whole house might have been murdered by burglars while he was enjoying himself in the front parlor.

Mr. Martin went home after he got a little of the milk and soap and ashes and things off of him, but he was too angry to speak. Mr. Withers said he would never enter the house again, and Mr. Travers didn't even wait to speak to Sue, he was in such a rage with Mr. Withers. After they were all gone, Sue told father that it was all my fault, and father said he would attend to my case in the morning: only, when the morning came, he told me not to do it again, and that was all.

I admit that I did do wrong, but I didn't mean it, and my only desire was to help my dear sister. You won't catch me helping her again very soon.

OUR BABY AGAIN.

After this, don't say anything more to me about babies. There's nothing more spiteful and militious than a baby. Our baby got me into an awful scrape once--the time I blacked it. But I don't blame it so much that time, because, after all, it was partly my fault; but now it has gone and done one of the meanest things a baby ever did, and came very near ruining me.

It has been a long time since mother and Sue said they would never trust me to take care of the baby again, but the other day they wanted awfully to go to a funeral. It was a funeral of one of their best friends, and there was to be lots of flowers, and they expected to see lots of people, and they said they would try me once more. They were going to be gone about two hours, and I was to take care of the baby till they came home again. Of course I said I would do my best, and so I did; only when a boy does try to do his best, he is sure to get himself into trouble. How many a time and oft have I found this to be true! Ah! this is indeed a hard and hollow world. The last thing Sue said when she went out of the door was, "Now be a good boy if you play any of your tricks I'll let you know." I wish Mr. Travers would marry her, and take her to China. I don't believe in sisters, anyway.

They hadn't been gone ten minutes when the baby woke up and cried, and I knew it did it on purpose. Now I had once read in an old magazine that if you put molasses on a baby's fingers, and give it a feather to play with, it will try to pick that feather off, and amuse itself, and keep quiet for ever so long. I resolved to try it; so I went straight down-stairs and brought up the big molasses jug out of the cellar. Then I made a little hole in one of mother's pillows, and pulled out a good handful of feathers. The baby stopped crying as soon as it saw what I was at, and so led me on, just on purpose to get me into trouble.

Well, I put a little molasses on the baby's hands, and put the feathers in its lap, and told it to be good and play real pretty. The baby began to play with the feathers, just as the magazine said it would, so I thought I would let it enjoy itself while I went up to my room to read a little while.

That baby never made a sound for ever so long, and I was thinking how pleased mother and Sue would be to find out a new plan for keeping it quiet. I just let it enjoy itself till about ten minutes before the time when they were to get back from the funeral, and then I went down to mother's room to look after the "little innocent," as Sue calls it. Much innocence there is about that baby!

I never saw such a awful spectacle. The baby had got hold of the molasses jug, which held mornagallon, and had upset it and rolled all over in it. The feathers had stuck to it so close that you couldn't hardly see its face, and its head looked just like a chicken's head. You wouldn't believe how that molasses had spread over the carpet. It seemed as if about half the room was covered with it. And there sat that wretched "little innocent" laughing to think how I'd catch it when the folks came home.

Now wasn't it my duty to wash that baby, and get the feathers and molasses off it? Any sensible person would say that it was. I tried to wash it in the wash-basin, but the feathers kept sticking on again as fast as I got them off. So I took it to the bath-tub and turned the water on, and held the baby right under the stream. The feathers were gradually getting rinsed away, and the molasses was coming off beautifully, when something happened.

The water made a good deal of noise, and I was standing with my back to the bath-room door, so that I did not hear anybody come in. The first thing I knew Sue snatched the baby away, and gave me such a box over the ear. Then she screamed out, "Ma! come here this wicked boy is drowning the baby O you little wretch won't you catch it for this." Mother came running up-stairs, and they carried the baby into mother's room to dry it.

You should have heard what they said when Sue slipped and sat down in the middle of the molasses, and cried out that her best dress was ruined, and mother saw what a state the carpet was in! I wouldn't repeat their language for worlds. It was personal, that's what it was, and I've been told fifty times never to make personal remarks. I should not have condescended to notice it if mother hadn't begun to cry; and of course I went and said I was awfully sorry, and that I meant it all for the best, and wouldn't have hurt the baby for anything, and begged her to forgive me and not cry any more.

When father came home they told him all about it. I knew very well they would, and I just lined myself with shingles so as to be good and ready. But he only said, "My son, I have decided to try milder measures with you. I think you are punished enough when you reflect that you have made your mother cry."

That was all, and I tell you I'd rather a hundred times have had him say, "My son, come up-stairs with me." And now if you don't admit that nothing could be meaner than the way that baby acted, I shall really be surprised and shocked.

STUDYING WASPS.

We had a lecture at our place the other day, because our people wanted to get even with the people of the next town, who had had a returned missionary with a whole lot of idols the week before. The lecture was all about wasps and beetles and such, and the lecturer had a magic lantern and a microscope, and everything that was adapted to improve and vitrify the infant mind, as our minister said when he introduced him. I believe the lecturer was a wicked, bad man, who came to our place on purpose to get me into trouble. Else why did he urge the boys to study wasps, and tell us how to collect wasps' nests without getting stung? The grown-up people thought it was all right, however, and Mr. Travers said to me, "Listen to what the gentleman says, Jimmy, and improve your mind with wasps."

Well, I thought I would do as I was told, especially as I knew of a tremendous big wasps' nest under the eaves of our barn. I got a ladder and a lantern the very night after the lecture, and prepared to study wasps. The lecturer said that the way to do was to wait till the wasps go to bed, and then to creep up to their nest with a piece of thin paper all covered with wet mucilage, and to clap it right over the door of the nest. Of course the wasps can't get out when they wake up in the morning, and you can take the nest and hang it up in your room; and after two or three days, when you open the nest and let the wasps out, and feed them with powdered sugar, they'll be so tame and grateful that they'll never think of stinging you, and you can study them all day long, and learn lots of useful lessons. Now is it probable that any real good man would put a boy up to any such nonsense as this? It's my belief that the lecturer was hired by somebody to come and entice all our boys to get themselves stung.

As I was saying, I got a ladder and a lantern, and a piece of paper covered with mucilage, and after dark I climbed up to the wasps' nest, and stopped up the door, and then brought the nest down in my hand. I was going to carry it up to my room, but just then mother called me; so I put the nest under the seat of our carriage, and went into the house, where I was put to bed for having taken the lantern out to the barn; and the next morning I forgot all about the nest.

I forgot it because I was invited to go on a picnic with Mr. Travers and my sister Sue and a whole lot of people, and any fellow would have forgot it if he had been in my place. Mr. Travers borrowed father's carriage, and he and Sue were to sit on the back seat, and Mr. Travers's aunt, who is pretty old and cross, was to sit on the front seat with Dr. Jones, the new minister, and I was to sit with the driver. We all started about nine o'clock, and a big basket of provisions was crowded into the carriage between everybody's feet.

We hadn't gone mornamile when Mr. Travers cries out: "My good gracious! Sue, I've run an awful pin into my leg. Why can't you girls be more careful about pins?" Sue replied that she hadn't any pins where they could run into anybody, and was going to say something more, when she screamed as if she was killed, and began to jump up and down and shake herself. Just then Dr. Jones jumped about two feet straight into the air, and said, "Oh my!" and Miss Travers took to screaming, "Fire! murder! help!" and slapping herself in a way that was quite awful. I began to think they were all going crazy, when all of a sudden I remembered the wasps' nest.

Somehow the wasps had got out of the nest, and were exploring all over the carriage. The driver stopped the horses to see what was the matter, and turned pale with fright when he saw Dr. Jones catch the basket of provisions and throw it out of the carriage, and then jump straight into it. Then Mr. Travers and his aunt and Sue all came flying out together, and were all mixed up with Dr. Jones and the provisions on the side of the road. They didn't stop long, however, for the wasps were looking for them; so they got up and rushed for the river, and went into it as if they were going to drown themselves--only it wasn't more than two feet deep.

George--he's the driver--was beginning to ask, "Is thishyer some swimmin' match that's goin' on?" when a wasp hit him on the neck, and another hit me on the cheek. We left that carriage in a hurry, and I never stopped till I got to my room and rolled myself up in the bedclothes. All the wasps followed me, so that Mr. Travers and Sue and the rest of them were left in peace, and might have gone to the picnic, only they felt as if they must come home for arnica, and, besides, the horses had run away, though they were caught afterwards, and didn't break anything.

This was all because that lecturer advised me to study wasps. I followed his directions, and it wasn't my fault that the wasps began to study Mr. Travers and his aunt, and Sue and Dr. Jones, and me and George. But father, when he was told about it, said that my "conduct was such," and the only thing that saved me was that my legs were stung all over, and father said he didn't have the heart to do any more to them with a switch.

A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.

I have been in the back bedroom up-stairs all the afternoon, and I am expecting father every minute. It was just after one o'clock when he told me to come up-stairs with him, and just then Mr. Thompson came to get him to go down town with him, and father said I'd have to excuse him for a little while and don't you go out of that room till I come back. So I excused him, and he hasn't come back yet; but I've opened one of the pillows and stuffed my clothes full of feathers, and I don't care much how soon he comes back now.

It's an awful feeling to be waiting up-stairs for your father, and to know that you have done wrong, though you really didn't mean to do so much wrong as you have done. I am willing to own that nobody ought to take anybody's clothes when he's in swimming, but anyhow they began it first, and I thought just as much as could be that the clothes were theirs.

The real boys that are to blame are Joe Wilson and Amzi Willetts. A week ago Saturday Tom McGinnis and I went in swimming down at the island. It's a beautiful place. The island is all full of bushes, and on one side the water is deep, where the big boys go in, and on the other it is shallow, where we fellows that can't swim very much where the water is more than two feet deep go in. While Tom and I were swimming, Joe and Amzi came and stole our clothes, and put them in their boat, and carried them clear across the deep part of the river. We saw them do it, and we had an awful time to get the clothes back, and I think it was just as mean.

Tom and I said we'd get even with them, and I know it was wrong, because it was a revengeful feeling, but anyhow we said we'd do it; and I don't think revenge is so very bad when you don't hurt a fellow, and wouldn't hurt him for anything, and just want to play him a trick that is pretty nearly almost quite innocent. But I don't say we did right, and when I've done wrong I'm always ready to say so.

Well, Tom and I watched, and last Saturday we saw Joe and Amzi go down to the island, and go in swimming on the shallow side; so we waded across and sneaked down among the bushes, and after a while we saw two piles of clothes. So we picked them up and ran away with them. The boys saw us, and made a terrible noise; but we sung out that they'd know now how it felt to have your clothes carried off, and we waded back across the river, and carried the clothes up to Amzi's house, and hid them in his barn, and thought that we'd got even with Joe and Amzi, and taught them a lesson which would do them a great deal of good, and would make them good and useful men.

This was in the morning about noon, and when I had my dinner I thought I'd go and see how the boys liked swimming, and offer to bring back their clothes if they'd promise to be good friends. I never was more astonished in my life than I was to find that they were nowhere near the island. I was beginning to be afraid they'd been drowned, when I heard some men calling me, and I found Squire Meredith and Amzi Willetts's father, who is a deacon, hiding among the bushes. They told me that some villains had stolen their clothes while they were in swimming, and they'd give me fifty cents if I'd go up to their houses and get their wives to give me some clothes to bring down to them.

I said I didn't want the fifty cents, but I'd go and try to find some clothes for them. I meant to go straight up to Amzi's barn and to bring the clothes back, but on the way I met Amzi with the clothes in a basket bringing them down to the island, and he said, "Somebody's goin' to be arrested for stealing father's and Squire Meredith's clothes. I saw the fellows that stole 'em, and I'm going to tell." You see, Tom and I had taken the wrong clothes, and Squire Meredith and Deacon Willetts, who had been in swimming on the deep side of the island, had been about two hours trying to play they were Zulus, and didn't need to wear any clothes, only they found it pretty hard work.

Deacon Willetts came straight to our house, and told father that his unhappy son--that's what he called me, and wasn't I unhappy, though--had stolen his clothes and Squire Meredith's; but for the sake of our family he wouldn't say very much about it, only if father thought best to spare the rods and spoil a child, he wouldn't be able to regard him as a man and a brother. So father called me and asked me if I had taken Deacon Willetts's clothes, and when I said yes, and was going to explain how it happened, he said that my conduct was such, and that I was bringing his gray hairs down, only I wouldn't hurt them for fifty million dollars, and I've often heard him say he hadn't a gray hair in his head.

And now I'm waiting up-stairs for the awful moment to arrive. I deserve it, for they say that Squire Meredith and Deacon Willetts are mornhalf eaten up by mosquitoes, and are confined to the house with salt and water, and crying out all the time that they can't stand it. I hope the feathers will work, but if they don't, no matter. I think I shall be a missionary, and do good to the heathen. I think I hear father coming in the front gate now, so I must close.

OUR BULL-FIGHT.

I'm going to stop improving my mind. It gets me into trouble all the time. Grown-up folks can improve their minds without doing any harm, for nobody ever tells them that their conduct is such, and that there isn't the least excuse in the world for them; but just as sure as a boy tries to improve his mind, especially with animals, he gets into dreadful difficulties.

There was a man came to our town to lecture a while ago. He had been a great traveller, and knew all about Rome and Niagara Falls and the North Pole, and such places, and father said, "Now, Jimmy, here's an opportunity for you to learn something and improve your mind go and take your mother and do take an interest in something besides games."

Well, I went to the lecture. The man told all about the Australian savages and their boomerangs. He showed us a boomerang, which is a stick with two legs, and an Australian will throw it at a man, and it will go and hit him, and come back of its own accord. Then he told us about the way the Zulus throw their assegais--that's the right way to spell it--and spear an Englishman that is mornten rods away from them. Then he showed a long string with a heavy lead ball on each end, and said the South Americans would throw it at a wild horse, and it would wind around the horse's legs, and tie itself into a bow-knot, and then the South Americans would catch the horse. But the best of all was the account of a bull-fight which he saw in Spain, with the Queen sitting on a throne, and giving a crown of evergreens to the chief bull-fighter. He said that bull-fighting was awfully cruel, and that he told us about it so that we might be thankful that we are so much better than those dreadful Spanish people, who will watch a bull-fight all day, and think it real fun.

The next day I told Mr. Travers about the boomerang, and he said it was all true. Once there was an Australian savage in a circus, and he got angry, and he threw his boomerang at a man who was in the third story of a hotel. The boomerang went down one street and up another, and into the hotel door, and up-stairs, and knocked the man on the head, and came back the same way right into the Australian savage's hand.