Chapter IV: Part 4

I was so anxious to show father that I had listened to the lecture that I made a boomerang just like the one the lecturer had. When it was done, I went out into the back yard, and slung it at a cat on the roof of our house. It never touched the cat, but it went right through the dining-room window, and gave Mr. Travers an awful blow in the eye, besides hitting Sue on the nose. It stopped right there in the dining-room, and never came back to me at all, and I don't believe a word the lecturer said about it. I don't feel courage to tell what father said about it.

Then I tried to catch Mr. Thompson's dog, that lives next door to us, with two lead balls tied on the ends of a long string. I didn't hit the dog any more than I did the cat, but I didn't do any harm except to Mrs. Thompson's cook, and she ought to be thankful that it was only her arm, for the doctor said that if the balls had hit her on the head they would have broken it, and the consequences might have been serious.

It was a good while before I could find anything to make an assegai out of; but after hunting all over the house, I came across a lovely piece of bamboo about ten feet long, and just as light as a feather. Then I got a big knife-blade that hadn't any handle to it, and that had been lying in father's tool-chest for ever so long, and fastened it on the end of the bamboo. You wouldn't believe how splendidly I could throw that assegai, only the wind would take it, and you couldn't tell when you threw it where it would bring up. I don't see how the Zulus ever manage to hit an Englishman; but Mr. Travers says that the Englishmen are all so made that you can't very well miss them. And then perhaps the Zulus, when they want to hit them, aim at something else. One day I was practising with the assegai at our barn-door, making believe that it was an Englishman, when Mr. Carruthers, the butcher, drove by, and the assegai came down and went through his foot, and pinned it to the wagon. But he didn't see me, and I guess he got it out after a while, though I never saw it again.

But what the lecturer taught us about bull-fights was worse than anything else. Tom McGinnis's father has a terrible bull in the pasture, and Tom and I agreed that we'd have a bull-fight, only, of course, we wouldn't hurt the bull. All we wanted to do was to show our parents how much we had learned about the geography and habits of the Spaniards.

Tom McGinnis's sister Jane, who is twelve years old, and thinks she knows everything, said she'd be the Queen of Spain, and give Tom and me evergreen wreaths. I got an old red curtain out of the dining-room, and divided it with Tom, so that we could wave it in the bull's face. When a bull runs after a bull-fighter, the other bull-fighter just waves his red rag, and the bull goes for him and lets the first bull-fighter escape. The lecturer said that there wasn't any danger so long as one fellow would always wave a red rag when the bull ran after the other fellow.

Pretty nearly all the school came down to the pasture to see our bull-fight. The Queen of Spain sat on the fence, because there wasn't any other throne, and the rest of the fellows and girls stood behind the fence. The bull was pretty savage; but Tom and I had our red rags, and we weren't afraid of him.

As soon as we went into the pasture the bull came for me, with his head down, and bellowing as if he was out of his mind. Tom rushed up and waved his red rag, and the bull stopped running after me, and went after Tom, just as the lecturer said he would.

I know I ought to have waved my red rag, so as to rescue Tom, but I was so interested that I forgot all about it, and the bull caught up with Tom. I should think he went twenty feet right up into the air, and as he came down he hit the Queen of Spain, and knocked her about six feet right against Mr. McGinnis, who had come down to the pasture to stop the fight.

The doctor says they'll all get well, though Tom's legs are all broke, and his sister's shoulder is out of joint, and Mr. McGinnis has got to get a new set of teeth. Father didn't do a thing to me--that is, with anything--but he talked to me till I made up my mind that I'd never try to learn anything from a lecturer again, not even if he lectures about Indians and scalping-knives.

OUR BALLOON.

I've made up my mind that half the trouble boys get into is the fault of the grown-up folks that are always wanting them to improve their minds.

I never improved my mind yet without suffering for it. There was the time I improved it studying wasps, just as the man who lectured about wasps and elephants and other insects told me to. If it hadn't been for that man I never should have thought of studying wasps.

One time our school-teacher told me that I ought to improve my mind by reading history, so I borrowed the history of _Blackbeard the Pirate_, and improved my mind for three or four hours every day. After a while father said, "Bring that book to me, Jimmy, and let's see what you're reading," and when he saw it, instead of praising me, he-- But what's the use of remembering our misfortunes? Still, if I was grown up, I wouldn't get boys into difficulty by telling them to do all sorts of things.

There was a Professor came to our house the other day. A Professor is a kind of man who wears spectacles up on the top of his head and takes snuff and doesn't talk English very plain. I believe Professors come from somewhere near Germany, and I wish this one had stayed in his own country. They live mostly on cabbage and such, and Mr. Travers says they are dreadfully fierce, and that when they are not at war with other people, they fight among themselves, and go on in the most dreadful way.

This Professor that came to see father didn't look a bit fierce, but Mr. Travers says that was just his deceitful way, and that if we had had a valuable old bone or a queer kind of shell in the house, the Professor would have got up in the night, and stolen it and killed us all in our beds; but Sue said it was a shame, and that the Professor was a lovely old gentleman, and there wasn't the least harm in his kissing her.

Well, the Professor was talking after dinner to father about balloons, and when he saw I was listening, he pretended to be awfully kind, and told me how to make a fire-balloon, and how he'd often made them and sent them up in the air; and then he told about a man who went up on horseback with his horse tied to a balloon; and father said, "Now listen to the Professor, Jimmy, and improve your mind while you've got a chance."

The next day Tom McGinnis and I made a balloon just as the Professor had told me to. It was made out of tissue-paper, and it had a sponge soaked full of alcohol, and when you set the alcohol on fire the tumefaction of the air would send the balloon mornamile high. We made it out in the barn, and thought we'd try it before we said anything to the folks about it, and then surprise them by showing them what a beautiful balloon we had, and how we'd improved our minds. Just as it was all ready, Sue's cat came into the barn, and I remembered the horse that had been tied to a balloon, and told Tom we'd see if the balloon would take the cat up with it.

So we tied her with a whole lot of things so she would hang under the balloon without being hurt a bit, and then we took the balloon into the yard to try it. After the alcohol had burned a little while the balloon got full of air, and presently it went slowly up. There wasn't a bit of wind, and when it had gone up about twice as high as the house it stood still.

You ought to have seen how that cat howled; but she was nothing compared with Sue when she came out and saw her beloved beast. She screamed to me to bring her that cat this instant you good-for-nothing cruel little wretch won't you catch it when father comes home.

Now I'd like to know how I could reach a cat that was a hundred feet up in the air, but that's all the reasonableness that girls have.

The balloon didn't stay up very long. It began to come slowly down, and when it struck the ground, the way that cat started on a run for the barn, and tried to get underneath it with the balloon all on fire behind her, was something frightful to see. By the time I could get to her and cut her loose, a lot of hay took fire and began to blaze, and Tom ran for the fire-engine, crying out "Fire!" with all his might.

The firemen happened to be at the engine-house, though they're generally all over town, and nobody can find them when there is a fire. They brought the engine into our yard in about ten minutes, and just as Sue and the cook and I had put the fire out. But that didn't prevent the firemen from working with heroic bravery, as our newspaper afterwards said. They knocked in our dining-room windows with axes, and poured about a thousand hogsheads of water into the room before we could make them understand that the fire was down by the barn, and had been put out before they came.

This was all the Professor's fault, and it has taught me a lesson. The next time anybody wants me to improve my mind I'll tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself.

OUR NEW WALK.

For once I have done right. I always used to think that if I stuck to it, and tried to do what was right, I would hit it some day; but at last I pretty nearly gave up all hope, and was beginning to believe that no matter what I did, some of the grown-up folks would tell me that my conduct was such. But I have done a real useful thing that was just what father wanted, and he has said that he would overlook it this time. Perhaps you think that this was not very encouraging to a boy; but if you had been told to come up-stairs with me my son as often as I have been, just because you had tried to do right, and hadn't exactly managed to suit people, you would be very glad to hear your father say that for once he would overlook it.

Did you ever play you were a ghost? I don't think much of ghosts, and wouldn't be a bit afraid if I was to see one. There was once a ghost that used to frighten people dreadfully by hanging himself to a hook in the wall. He was one of those tall white ghosts, and they are the very worst kind there is. This one used to come into the spare bedroom of the house where he lived before he was dead, and after walking round the room, and making as if he was in dreadfully low spirits, he would take a rope out of his pocket, and hang himself to a clothes-hook just opposite the bed, and the person who was in the bed would faint away with fright, and pull the bedclothes over his head, and be in the most dreadful agony until morning, when he would get up, and people would say, "Why how dreadful you look your hair is all gray and you are whiternany sheet." One time a man came to stay at the house who wasn't afraid of anything, and he said, "I'll fix that ghost of yours; I'm a terror on wooden wheels when any ghosts are around, I am." So he was put to sleep in the room, and before he went to bed he loosened the hook, so that it would come down very easy, and then he sat up in bed and read till twelve o'clock. Just when the clock struck, the ghost came in and walked up and down as usual, and finally got out his rope and hung himself; but as soon as he kicked away the chair he stood on when he hung himself, down came the hook, and the ghost fell all in a heap on the floor, and sprained his ankle, and got up and limped away, dreadfully ashamed, and nobody ever saw him again.

Father has been having the front garden walk fixed with an askfelt pavement. Askfelt is something like molasses, only four times as sticky when it is new. After a while it grows real hard, only ours hasn't grown very hard yet. I watched the men put it down, and father said, "Be careful and don't step on it until it gets hard or you'll stick fast in it and can't ever get out again. I'd like to see half a dozen meddlesome boys stuck in it and serve them right." As soon as I heard dear father mention what he'd like, I determined that he should have his wish, for there is nothing that is more delightful to a good boy than to please his father.

That afternoon I mentioned to two or three boys that I knew were pretty bad boys that our melons were ripe, and that father was going to pick them in a day or two. The melon patch is at the back of the house, and after dark I dressed myself in one of mother's gowns, and hid in the wood-shed. About eleven o'clock I heard a noise, and looked out, and there were six boys coming in the back gate, and going for the melon patch. I waited till they were just ready to begin, and then I came out and said, in a hollow and protuberant voice, "Beware!"

They dropped the melons, and started to run, but they couldn't get to the back gate without passing close to me, and I knew they wouldn't try that. So they started to run round the house to the front gate, and I ran after them. When they reached the new front walk, they seemed to stop all of a sudden, and two or three of them fell down.

I didn't wait to hear what they had to say, but went quietly back, and got into the house through the kitchen-window, and went up-stairs to my room. I could hear them whispering, and now and then one or two of them would cry a little; but I thought it wouldn't be honorable to listen to them, so I went to sleep.

In the morning there were five boys stuck in the askfelt, and frightened 'most to death. I got up early, and called father, and told him that there seemed to be something the matter with his new walk. When he came out and saw five boys caught in the pavement, and an extra pair of shoes that belonged to another boy who had wriggled out of them and gone away and left them, he was the most astonished man you ever saw. I told him how I had caught the boys stealing melons, and had played I was a ghost and frightened them away, and he said that if I'd help the coachman pry the boys out, he would overlook it. So he sat upon the piazza and overlooked the coachman and me while we pried the boys out, and they came out awfully hard, and the askfelt is full of pieces of trousers and things. I don't believe it will ever be a handsome walk; but whenever father looks at it he will think what a good boy I have been, which will give him more pleasure than a hundred new askfelt walks.

A STEAM CHAIR.

I don't like Mr. Travers as much as I did. Of course I know he's a very nice man, and he's going to be my brother when he marries Sue, and he used to bring me candy sometimes, but he isn't what he used to be.

One time--that was last summer--he was always dreadfully anxious to hear from the Post-office, and whenever he came to see Sue, and he and she and I would be sitting on the front piazza, he would say, "Jimmy, I think there must be a letter for me; I'll give you ten cents if you'll go down to the Post-office;" and then Sue would say, "Don't run, Jimmy; you'll get heart disease if you do;" and I'd walk 'way down to the Post-office, which is pretty near half a mile from our house. But now he doesn't seem to care anything about his letters; and he and Sue sit in the back parlor, and mother says I mustn't go in and disturb them; and I don't get any more ten cents.

I've learned that it won't do to fix your affections on human beings, for even the best of men won't keep on giving you ten cents forever. And it wasn't fair for Mr. Travers to get angry with me the other night, when it was all an accident--at least 'most all of it; and I don't think it's manly for a man to stand by and see a sister shake a fellow that isn't half her size, and especially when he never supposed that anything was going to happen to her even if it did break.

When Aunt Eliza came to our house the last time, she brought a steam chair: that's what she called it, though there wasn't any steam about it. She brought it from Europe with her, and it was the queerest sort of chair, that would all fold up, and had a kind of footstool to it, so that you put your legs out and just lie down in it. Well, one day it got broken. The back of the seat fell down, and shut Aunt Eliza up in the chair so she couldn't get out, and didn't she just howl till somebody came and helped her! She was so angry that she said she never wanted to see that chair again, and you may have it if you want it Jimmy for you are a good boy sometimes when you want to be.

So I took the chair and mended it. The folks laughed at me, and said I couldn't mend it to save my life; but I got some nails and some mucilage, and mended it elegantly. Then mother let me get some varnish, and I varnished the chair, and when it was done it looked so nice that Sue said we'd keep it in the back parlor. Now I'm never allowed to sit in the back parlor, so what good would my chair do me? But Sue said, "Stuff and nonsense that boy's indulged now till he can't rest." So they put my chair in the back parlor, just as if I'd been mending it on purpose for Mr. Travers. I didn't say anything more about it; but after it was in the back parlor I took out one or two screws that I thought were not needed to hold it together, and used them for a boat that I was making.

That night Mr. Travers came as usual, and after he had talked to mother awhile about the weather, and he and father had agreed that it was a shame that other folks hadn't given more money to the Michigan sufferers, and that they weren't quite sure that the sufferers were a worthy object, and that a good deal of harm was done by giving away money to all sorts of people, Sue said,

"Perhaps we had better go into the back parlor; it is cooler there, and we won't disturb father, who wants to think about something."

So she and Mr. Travers went into the back parlor, and shut the door, and talked very loud at first about a whole lot of things, and then quieted down, as they always did.

I was in the front parlor, reading "Robinson Crusoe," and wishing I could go and do likewise--like Crusoe, I mean; for I wouldn't go and sit quietly in a back parlor with a girl, like Mr. Travers, not if you were to pay me for it. I can't see what some fellows see in Sue. I'm sure if Mr. Martin or Mr. Travers had her pull their hair once the way she pulls mine sometimes, they wouldn't trust themselves alone with her very soon.

All at once we heard a dreadful crash in the back parlor, and Mr. Travers said Good something very loud, and Sue shrieked as if she had a needle run into her. Father and mother and I and the cook and the chambermaid all rushed to see what was the matter.

The chair that I had mended, and that Sue had taken away from me, had broken down while Mr. Travers was sitting in it, and it had shut up like a jack-knife, and caught him so he couldn't get out. It had caught Sue too, who must have run to help him, or she never would have been in that fix, with Mr. Travers holding her by the waist, and her arm wedged in so she couldn't pull it away.

Father managed to get them loose, and then Sue caught me and shook me till I could hear my teeth rattle, and then she ran up-stairs and locked herself up; and Mr. Travers never offered to help me, but only said, "I'll settle with you some day, young man," and then he went home. But father sat down on the sofa and laughed, and said to mother,

"I guess Sue would have done better if she'd have let the boy keep his chair."

ANIMALS.

I should like to be an animal. Not an insect, of course, nor a snake, but a nice kind of animal, like an elephant or a dog with a good master.

Animals are awfully intelligent, but they haven't any souls. There was once an elephant in a circus, and one day a boy said to him, "Want a lump of sugar, old fellow?" The elephant he nodded, and felt real grateful, for elephants are very fond of lump-sugar, which is what they live on in their native forests. But the boy put a cigar instead of a lump of sugar in his mouth.

The sagacious animal, instead of eating up the cigar or trying to smoke it and making himself dreadfully sick, took it and carried it across the circus to a man who kept a candy and cigar stand, and made signs that he'd sell the cigar for twelve lumps of sugar. The man gave the elephant the sugar and took the cigar, and then the intelligent animal sat down on his hind-legs and laughed at the boy who had tried to play a joke on him, until the boy felt that much ashamed that he went right home and went to bed.

In the days when there were fairies--only I don't believe there ever were any fairies, and Mr. Travers says they were rubbish--boys were frequently changed into animals. There was once a boy who did something that made a wicked fairy angry, and she changed him into a cat, and thought she had punished him dreadfully. But the boy after he was a cat used to come and get on her back fence and yowl as if he was ten or twelve cats all night long, and she couldn't get a wink of sleep, and fell into a fever, and had to take lots of castor-oil and dreadful medicines.

So she sent for the boy who was a cat, you understand, and said she'd change him back again. But he said, "Oh no; I'd much rather be a cat, for I'm so fond of singing on the back fence." And the end of it was that she had to give him a tremendous pile of money before he'd consent to be changed back into a boy again.

Boys can play being animals, and it's great fun, only the other boys who don't play they are animals get punished for it, and I say it's unjust, especially as I never meant any harm at all, and was doing my very best to amuse the children.

This is the way it happened. Aunt Sarah came to see us the other day, and brought her three boys with her. I don't think you ever heard of Aunt Sarah, and I wish I never had. She's one of father's sisters, and he thinks a great deal more of her than I would if she was my sister, and I don't think it's much credit to anybody to be a sister anyway. The boys are twins, that is, two of them are, and they are all about three or four years old.

Well, one day just before Christmas, when it was almost as warm out-doors as it is in summer, Aunt Sarah said,

"Jimmy, I want you to take the dear children out and amuse them a few hours. I know you're so fond of your dear little cousins and what a fine manly boy you are!" So I took them out, though I didn't want to waste my time with little children, for we are responsible for wasting time, and ought to use every minute to improve ourselves.

The boys wanted to see the pigs that belong to Mr. Taylor, who lives next door, so I took them through a hole in the fence, and they looked at the pigs, and one of them said,

"Oh my how sweet they are and how I would like to be a little pig and never be washed and have lots of swill!"

So I said, "Why don't you play you are pigs, and crawl round and grunt? It's just as easy, and I'll look at you."

You see, I thought I ought to amuse them, and that this would be a nice way to teach them to amuse themselves.

Well, they got down on all fours and ran round and grunted, until they began to get tired of it, and then wanted to know what else pigs could do, so I told them that pigs generally rolled in the mud, and the more mud a pig could get on himself the happier he would be, and that there was a mud puddle in our back yard that would make a pig cry like a child with delight.

The boys went straight to that mud puddle, and they rolled in the mud until there wasn't an inch of them that wasn't covered with mud so thick that you would have to get a crowbar to pry it off.

Just then Aunt Sarah came to the door and called them, and when she saw them she said, "Good gracious what on earth have you been doing?" and Tommy, that's the oldest boy, said,

"We've been playing we were pigs ma and it's real fun and wasn't Jimmy good to show us how?"

I think they had to boil the boys in hot water before they could get the mud off, and their clothes have all got to be sent to the poor people out West whose things were all lost in the great floods. If you'll believe it, I never got the least bit of thanks for showing the boys how to amuse themselves, but Aunt Sarah said that I'd get something when father came home, and she wasn't mistaken. I'd rather not mention what it was that I got, but I got it mostly on the legs, and I think bamboo canes ought not to be sold to fathers any more than poison.

I was going to tell why I should like to be an animal; but as it is getting late, I must close.

A PLEASING EXPERIMENT.

Every time I try to improve my mind with science I resolve that I will never do it again, and then I always go and do it. Science is so dreadfully tempting that you can hardly resist it. Mr. Travers says that if anybody once gets into the habit of being a scientific person there is little hope that he will ever reform, and he says he has known good men who became habitual astronomers, and actually took to prophesying weather, all because they yielded to the temptation to look through telescopes, and to make figures on the black-board with chalk.

I was reading a lovely book the other day. It was all about balloons and parachutes. A parachute is a thing that you fall out of a balloon with. It is something like an open umbrella, only nobody ever borrows it. If you hold a parachute over your head and drop out of a balloon, it will hold you up so that you will come down to the ground so gently that you won't be hurt the least bit.

I told Tom McGinnis about it, and we said we would make a parachute, and jump out of the second-story window with it. It is easy enough to make one, for all you have to do is to get a big umbrella and open it wide, and hold on to the handle. Last Saturday afternoon Tom came over to my house, and we got ready to try what the book said was "a pleasing scientific experiment."

We didn't have the least doubt that the book told the truth. But Tom didn't want to be the first to jump out of the window--neither did I--and we thought we'd give Sue's kitten a chance to try a parachute, and see how she liked it. Sue had an umbrella that was made of silk, and was just the thing to suit the kitten. I knew Sue wouldn't mind lending the umbrella, and as she was out making calls, and I couldn't ask her permission, I borrowed the umbrella and the kitten, and meant to tell her all about it as soon as she came home. We tied the kitten fast to the handle of the umbrella, so as not to hurt her, and then dropped her out of the window. The wind was blowing tremendously hard, which I supposed was a good thing, for it is the air that holds up a parachute, and of course the more wind there is, the more air there is, and the better the parachute will stay up.

The minute we dropped the cat and the umbrella out of the window, the wind took them and blew them clear over the back fence into Deacon Smedley's pasture before they struck the ground. This was all right enough, but the parachute didn't stop after it struck the ground. It started across the country about as fast as a horse could run, hitting the ground every few minutes, and then bouncing up into the air and coming down again, and the kitten kept clawing at everything, and yowling as if she was being killed. By the time Tom and I could get down-stairs the umbrella was about a quarter of a mile off. We chased it till we couldn't run any longer, but we couldn't catch it, and the last we saw of the umbrella and the cat they were making splendid time towards the river, and I'm very much afraid they were both drowned.

Tom and I came home again, and when we got a little rested we said we would take the big umbrella and try the pleasing scientific experiment; at least I said that Tom ought to try it, for we had proved that a little silk umbrella would let a kitten down to the ground without hurting her, and of course a great big umbrella would hold Tom up all right. I didn't care to try it myself, because Tom was visiting me, and we ought always to give up our own pleasures in order to make our visitors happy.

After a while Tom said he would do it, and when everything was ready he sat on the window-ledge, with his legs hanging out, and when the wind blew hard he jumped.

It is my opinion, now that the thing is all over, that the umbrella wasn't large enough, and that if Tom had struck the ground he would have been hurt. He went down awfully fast, but by good-luck the grocer's man was just coming out of the kitchen-door as Tom came down, and he lit right on the man's head. It is wonderful how lucky some people are, for the grocer's man might have been hurt if he hadn't happened to have a bushel basket half full of eggs with him, and as he and Tom both fell into the eggs, neither of them was hurt.

They were just getting out from among the eggs when Sue came in with some of the ribs of her umbrella that somebody had fished out of the river and given to her. There didn't seem to be any kitten left, for Sue didn't know anything about it, but father and Mr. McGinnis came in a few minutes afterwards, and I had to explain the whole thing to them.

This is the last "pleasing scientific experiment" I shall ever try. I don't think science is at all nice, and, besides, I am awfully sorry about the kitten.

TRAPS.

A boy ought always to stand up for his sister, and protect her from everybody, and do everything to make her happy, for she can only be his sister once, and he would be so awfully sorry if she died and then he remembered that his conduct towards her had sometimes been such.

Mr. Withers doesn't come to our house any more. One night Sue saw him coming up the garden-walk, and father said, "There's the other one coming, Susan; isn't this Travers's evening?" and then Sue said, "I do wish somebody would protect me from him he is that stupid don't I wish I need never lay eyes on him again."

I made up my mind that nobody should bother my sister while she had a brother to protect her. So the next time I saw Mr. Withers I spoke to him kindly and firmly--that's the way grown-up people speak when they say something dreadfully unpleasant--and told him what Sue had said about him, and that he ought not to bother her any more. Mr. Withers didn't thank me and say that he knew I was trying to do him good, which was what he ought to have said, but he looked as if he wanted to hurt somebody, and walked off without saying a word to me, and I don't think he was polite about it.

He has never been at our house since. When I told Sue how I had protected her she was so overcome with gratitude that she couldn't speak, and just motioned me with a book to go out of her room and leave her to feel thankful about it by herself. The book very nearly hit me on the head, but it wouldn't have hurt much if it had.

Mr. Travers was delighted about it, and told me that I had acted like a man, and that he shouldn't forget it. The next day he brought me a beautiful book all about traps. It told how to make mornahundred different kinds of traps that would catch everything, and it was one of the best books I ever saw.

Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Schofield, keeps pigs, only he don't keep them enough, for they run all around. They come into our garden and eat up everything, and father said he would give almost anything to get rid of them.

Now one of the traps that my book told about was just the thing to catch pigs with. It was made out of a young tree and a rope. You bend the tree down and fasten the rope to it so as to make a slippernoose, and when the pig walks into the slippernoose the tree flies up and jerks him into the air.

I thought that I couldn't please father better than to make some traps and catch some pigs; so I got a rope, and got two Irishmen that were fixing the front walk to bend down two trees for me and hold them while I made the traps. This was just before supper, and I expected that the pigs would come early the next morning and get caught.

It was bright moonlight that evening, and Mr. Travers and Sue said the house was so dreadfully hot that they would go and take a walk. They hadn't been out of the house but a few minutes when we heard an awful shriek from Sue, and we all rushed out to see what was the matter.

Mr. Travers had walked into a trap, and was swinging by one leg, with his head about six feet from the ground. Nobody knew him at first except me, for when a person is upside down he doesn't look natural; but I knew what was the matter, and told father that it would take two men to bend down the tree and get Mr. Travers loose. So they told me to run and get Mr. Schofield to come and help, and they got the step-ladder so that Sue could sit on the top of it and hold Mr. Travers's head.

I was so excited that I forgot all about the other trap, and, besides, Sue had said things to me that hurt my feelings, and that prevented me from thinking to tell Mr. Schofield not to get himself caught. He ran ahead of me, because he was so anxious to help, and the first thing I knew there came an awful yell from him, and up he went into the air, and hung there by both legs, which I suppose was easier than the way Mr. Travers hung.

Then everybody went at me in the most dreadful way, except Sue, who was holding Mr. Travers's head. They said the most unkind things to me, and sent me into the house. I heard afterwards that father got Mr. Schofield's boy to climb up and cut Mr. Travers and Mr. Schofield loose, and they fell on the gravel, but it didn't hurt them much, only Mr. Schofield broke some of his teeth, and says he is going to bring a lawsuit against father. Mr. Travers was just as good as he could be. He only laughed the next time he saw me, and he begged them not to punish me, because it was his fault that I ever came to know about that kind of trap.

Mr. Travers is the nicest man that ever lived, except father, and when he marries Sue I shall go and live with him, though I haven't told him yet, for I want to keep it as a pleasant surprise for him.

AN ACCIDENT.

Aunt Eliza never comes to our house without getting me into difficulties. I don't really think she means to do it, but it gets itself done just the same. She was at our house last week, and though I meant to behave in the most exemplifying manner, I happened by accident to do something which she said ought to fill me with remorse for the rest of my days.

Remorse is a dreadful thing to have. Some people have it so bad that they never get over it. There was once a ghost who suffered dreadfully from remorse. He was a tall white ghost, with a large cotton umbrella. He haunted a house where he used to walk up and down, carrying his umbrella and looking awfully solemn. People used to wonder what he wanted of an umbrella, but they never asked him, because they always shrieked and fainted away when they saw the ghost, and when they were brought to cried, "Save me take it away take it away."

One time a boy came to the house to spend Christmas. He was just a terror, was this boy. He had been a District Telegraph Messenger boy, and he wasn't afraid of anything. The folks told him about the ghost, but he said he didn't care for any living ghost, and had just as soon see him as not.

That night the boy woke up, and saw the ghost standing in his bedroom, and he said, "Thishyer is nice conduct, coming into a gentleman's room without knocking. What do you want, anyway?"

The ghost replied in the most respectful way that he wanted to find the owner of the umbrella. "I stole that umbrella when I was alive," he said, "and I am filled with remorse."

"I should think you would be," said the boy, "for it is the worst old cotton umbrella I ever saw."

"If I can only find the owner and give it back to him," continued the ghost, "I can get a little rest; but I've been looking for him for ninety years, and I can't find him."

"Serves you right," said the boy, "for not sending for a messenger. You're in luck to meet me. Gimme the umbrella, and I'll give it back to the owner."

"Bless you," said the ghost, handing the umbrella to the boy; "you have saved me. Now I will go away and rest," and he turned to go out of the door, when the boy said,

"See here; it's fifty cents for taking an umbrella home, and I've got to be paid in advance."

"But I haven't got any money," said the ghost.

"Can't help that," said the boy. "You give me fifty cents, or else take your umbrella back again. We don't do any work in our office for nothing."

Well, the end of it all was that the ghost left the umbrella with the boy, and the next night he came back with the money, though where he got it nobody will ever know. The boy kept the money, and threw the umbrella away, for he was a real bad boy, and only made believe that he was going to find the owner, and the ghost was never seen again.

But I haven't told about the trouble with Aunt Eliza yet. The day she came to our house mother bought a lot of live crabs from a man, and put them in a pail in the kitchen. Tom McGinnis was spending the day with me, and I said to him what fun it would be to have crab races, such as we used to have down at the sea-shore last summer. He said wouldn't it, though; so each of us took three crabs, and went up-stairs into the spare bedroom, where we could be sure of not being disturbed. We had a splendid time with the crabs, and I won more than half the races. All of a sudden I heard mother calling me, and Tom and I just dropped the crabs into an empty work-basket, and pushed it under the sofa out of sight, and then went down-stairs.

I meant to get the crabs and take them back to the kitchen again, but I forgot all about it, for Aunt Eliza came just after mother had called me, and everybody was busy talking to her. Of course she was put into the spare room, and as she was very tired, she said she'd lie down on the sofa until dinner-time and take her hair down.

About an hour afterwards we heard the most dreadful cries from Aunt Eliza's room, and everybody rushed up-stairs, because they thought she must certainly be dead. Mother opened the door, and we all went in. Aunt Eliza was standing in the middle of the floor, and jumping up and down, and crying and shrieking at the top of her voice. One crab was hanging on to one of her fingers, and he pinched just as hard as he could pinch, and there were two more hanging on to the ends of her hair. You see, the crabs had got out of the work-basket, and some of them had climbed up the sofa while Aunt Eliza was asleep.

Of course they said it was all my fault, and perhaps it was. But I'd like to know if it's a fair thing to leave crabs where they can tempt a fellow, and then to be severe with him when he forgets to put them back. However, I forgive everybody, especially Aunt Eliza, who really doesn't mean any harm.

A PILLOW FIGHT.

We've been staying at the sea-shore for a week, and having a beautiful time. I love the sea-shore, only it would be a great deal nicer if there wasn't any sea; then you wouldn't have to go in bathing. I don't like to go in bathing, for you get so awfully wet, and the water chokes you. Then there are ticks on the sea-shore in the grass. A tick is an insect that begins and bites you, and never stops till you're all ettup, and then you die, and the tick keeps on growing bigger all the time.

There was once a boy and a tick got on him and bit him, and kept on biting for three or four days, and it ettup the boy till the tick was almost as big as the boy had been, and the boy wasn't any bigger than a marble, and he died, and his folks felt dreadfully about it. I never saw a tick, but I know that there are lots of them on the sea-shore, and that's reason enough not to like it.

We stayed at a boarding-house while we were at the sea-shore. A boarding-house is a place where they give you pure country air and a few vegetables and a little meat, and I say give me a jail where they feed you if they do keep you shut up in the dark. There were a good many people in our boarding-house, and I slept up-stairs on the third story with three other boys, and there were two more boys on the second story, and that's the way all the trouble happened.

There is nothing that is better fun than a pillow fight; that is, when you're home and have got your own pillows, and know they're not loaded, as Mr. Travers says. He was real good about it, too, and I sha'n't forget it, for 'most any man would have been awfully mad, but he just made as if he didn't care, only Sue went on about it as if I was the worst boy that ever lived.

You see, we four boys on the third story thought it would be fun to have a pillow fight with the two boys on the second story. We waited till everybody had gone to bed, and then we took our pillows and went out into the hall just as quiet as could be, only Charley Thompson he fell over a trunk in the hall and made a tremendous noise. One of the boarders opened his door and said who's there, but we didn't answer, and presently he said "I suppose it's that cat people ought to be ashamed of themselves to keep such animals," and shut his door again.

After a little while Charley was able to walk, though his legs were dreadfully rough where he'd scraped them against the trunk. So we crept down-stairs and went into the boys' room, and began to pound them with the pillows.

They knew what was the matter, and jumped right up and got their pillows, and went at us so fierce that they drove us out into the hall. Of course this made a good deal of noise, for we knocked over the wash-stand in the room, and upset a lot of lamps that were on the table in the hall, and every time I hit one of the boys he would say "Ouch!" so loud that anybody that was awake could hear him. We fought all over the hall, and as we began to get excited we made so much noise that Mr. Travers got up and came out to make us keep quiet.

It was pretty dark in the hall, and though I knew Mr. Travers, I thought he couldn't tell me from the other boys, and I thought I would just give him one good whack on the head, and then we'd all run up-stairs. He wouldn't know who hit him, and, besides, who ever heard of a fellow being hurt with a pillow?

So I stood close up by the wall till he came near me, and then I gave him a splendid bang over the head. It sounded as if you had hit a fellow with a club, and Mr. Travers dropped to the floor with an awful crash, and never spoke a word.

I never was so frightened in my life, for I thought Mr. Travers was killed. I called murder help fire, and every body ran out of their rooms, and fell over trunks, and there was the most awful time you ever dreamed of. At last somebody got a lamp, and somebody else got some water and picked Mr. Travers up and carried him into his room, and then he came to and said, "Where am I Susan what is the matter O now I know."

He was all right, only he had a big bump on one side of his head, and he said that it was all an accident, and that he wouldn't have Sue scold me, and that it served him right for not remembering that boarding-house pillows are apt to be loaded.

The next morning he made me bring him my pillow, and then he found out how it came to hurt him. All the chicken bones, and the gravel-stones, and the chunks of wood that were in the pillow had got down into one end of it while we were having the fight, and when I hit Mr. Travers they happened to strike him on his head where it was thin, and knocked him senseless. Nobody can tell how glad I am that he wasn't killed, and it's a warning to me never to have pillow fights except with pillows that I know are not loaded with chicken bones and things.

I forgot to say that after that night my mother and all the boys' mothers took all the pillows away from us, for they said they were too dangerous to be left where boys could get at them.

SUE'S WEDDING.

Sue ought to have been married a long while ago. That's what everybody says who knows her. She has been engaged to Mr. Travers for three years, and has had to refuse lots of offers to go to the circus with other young men. I have wanted her to get married, so that I could go and live with her and Mr. Travers. When I think that if it hadn't been for a mistake I made she would have been married yesterday, I find it dreadfully hard to be resigned. But we ought always to be resigned to everything when we can't help it.

Before I go any further I must tell about my printing-press. It belonged to Tom McGinnis, but he got tired of it and sold it to me real cheap. He was going to write to the YOUNG PEOPLE's Post-office Box and offer to exchange it for a bicycle, a St. Bernard dog, and twelve good books, but he finally let me have it for a dollar and a half.

It prints beautifully, and I have printed cards for ever so many people, and made three dollars and seventy cents already. I thought it would be nice to be able to print circus bills in case Tom and I should ever have another circus, so I sent to the city and bought some type mornaninch high, and some beautiful yellow paper.