Chapter I: Part 1

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WHEN YOU WERE A BOY

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WHEN YOU
WERE A BOY

BY
EDWIN L. SABIN

WITH PICTURES BY
FREDERIC DORR STEELE

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New York
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
33-37 EAST 17TH STREET, UNION SQUARE (NORTH)

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Published October, 1905

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

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For permission to republish the following
sketches the author is gratefully indebted
to the Century Magazine, the Saturday Evening
Post, Everybody’s Magazine, and the National
Magazine.

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CONTENTS

❦

PAGE
I The Match Game 11
II You at School 39
III Chums 65
IV In the Arena 91
V The Circus 111
VI When You Ran Away 135
VII Goin’ Fishin’ 155
VIII In Society 179
IX Middleton’s Hill 195
X Goin’ Swimmin’ 219
XI The Sunday-School Picnic 239
XII The Old Muzzle-Loader 257
XIII A Boy’s Loves 277
XIV Noon 297

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THE MATCH GAME

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WHEN YOU WERE A BOY

THE MATCH GAME

“OUR” NINE

Billy Lunt, c
Fat Day, p
Hen Schmidt, 1b
Bob Leslie, 2b
Hod O’Shea, 3b
Chub Thornbury, ss
Nixie Kemp, lf
Tom Kemp, rf
“You,” cf.

“THEIR” NINE

Spunk Carey, c
Doc Kennedy, p
Screw Major, 1b
Ted Watson, 2b
Red Conroy, 3b
Slim Harding, ss
Pete Jones, lf
Tug McCormack, rf
Ollie Hansen, cf

We: 5 9 9 8—31
They: 11 14 9 16—50

FAT DAY was captain and pitcher. He was captain because, if he was _not_, he wouldn’t play, and inasmuch as he owned the ball, this would have been disastrous; and he was pitcher because he was captain.

In the North Stars were other pitchers—seven of them! The only member who did not aspire to pitch was Billy Lunt, and as catcher he occupied a place, in “takin’ ’em off the bat,” too delightfully hazardous for him to surrender, and too painful for anybody else to covet.

The organization of the North Stars was effected through verbal contracts somewhat as follows:

“Say, we want you to be in our nine.”

“All right. Will you lemme pitch?”

“Naw; Fat’s pitcher, ’cause he’s captain; but you can play first.”

“Pooh! _Fat_ can’t pitch—”

“I can, too. I can pitch lots better’n _you_ can, anyhow.” (This from Fat himself.)

“W-well, I’ll play first, then. I don’t care.”

Thus an adjustment was reached.

A proud moment for you was it when _your_ merits as a ball-player were recognized, and you were engaged for center-field. Of course, secretly you nourished the strong conviction that you were cut out for a pitcher. Next to pitcher, you preferred short-stop, and next to short-stop, first base. But these positions, and pretty much everything, in fact, had been preempted; so, after the necessary haggling, you accepted center-field.

Speedily the North Star make-up was complete, and disappointed applicants—those too little, too big, too late, or not good enough—were busy sneering about it.

The equipment of the North Star Base-Ball Club consisted of Fat’s “regular league” ball, six bats (owned by various members, and in some cases exercising no small influence in determining fitness of the same for enlistment as recruits), and four uniforms.

Mother made your uniform. To-day you wonder how, amidst darning your stockings and patching our trousers and mending your waists, she ever found time in which to supply you with the additional regalia which, according to your pursuits of the hour, day after day you insistently demanded. But she always did.

The uniform in question was composed of a pair of your linen knickerbockers with a red tape tacked along the outside seam, and a huge six-pointed blue flannel star, each point having a buttonhole whereby it was attached to a button, corresponding, on the breast of your waist. And was there a cap, or did you wear the faithful old straw? Fat Day, you recollect, had a cap upon the front of which was lettered his rank—“Captain.” It seems as though mother made you a cap, as well as the striped trousers and breastplate. The cap was furnished with a tremendously deep vizor of pasteboard, and was formed of four segments, two white and two blue, meeting in the center of the crown.

All in all, the uniform was perfectly satisfactory; it was distinctive, and was surpassed by none of the other three.

Evidently the mothers of five of the North Stars did not attend to business, for their sons played in ordinary citizen’s attire of hats, and of waists and trousers unadorned save by the stains incidental to daily life.

The North Stars must have been employed for a time chiefly in parading about and seeking whom they, as an aggregation, might devour, but as a rule failing, owing to interfering house-and-yard duties, all to report upon any one occasion. The contests had been with “picked nines,” “just for fun” (meaning that there was no sting in defeat), when on a sudden it was breathlessly announced from mouth, to mouth that “the Second-street kids want to play us.”

“Come on!” responded, with a single valiant voice, the North Stars.

“We’re goin’ to play a match game next Tuesday,” you gave out, as a bit of important news, at the supper-table.

“That so?” hazarded father, who had been flatteringly interested in your blue star. “Who’s the other nine?”

“The Second-street fellows. Spunk Carey’s captain and—”

“Who is _Spunk_ Carey? Oh, Johnny, what outlandish names you boys do rake up!” exclaimed mother.

“Why, he’s Frank Carey the hardware man’s boy,” explained father, indulgently. “What’s his first name, John?”

“I dunno,” you hurriedly owned; “Spunk” had been quite sufficient for all purposes. “But we’re goin’ to play in the vacant lot next to Carey’s house. There’s a dandy diamond.”

So there was. The Carey side fence supplied a fine back-stop, and thence the grounds extended in a superb level of dusty green, broken by burdock clumps and interspersed with tin cans. The lot was bounded on the east by the Carey fence, on the south and west by a high walk, and on the north by the alley. It was a corner lot, which made it the more spacious.

The diamond itself had been laid out, in the beginning, with proportions accommodated to a pair of rocks that would answer for first and second base; a slab dropped where third ought to be, and another dropped for the home plate, finished the preliminary work, and thereafter scores of running feet, shod and unshod, had worn bare the lines, and the spots where stood pitcher, catcher, and batter.

A landscape architect might have passed criticism on the ensemble of the plat, and a surveyor might have taken exceptions to the configuration of the diamond, but who cared?

“We” had promised that “we” would be there, ready to play, at two o’clock, and “they” had solemnly vowed that “they” would be as prompt. Tuesday’s dinner you gulped and gobbled; in those days your stomach was patient and charitable almost beyond belief in this degenerate present. It was imperative that you be at Carey’s lot immediately, and despite the imploring objections of the family to your reckless haste, you bolted out; and as you went you drew upon your left hand an old fingerless kid glove, which was of some peculiar service in your center-field duties.

Your uniform had been put on upon arising that morning. You always wore it nowadays except when in bed or on Sundays. It was your toga of the purple border, and the bat that you carried from early to late, in your peregrinations, was your scepter mace.

At your unearthly yodel, from next door rushed out your crony, Hen Schmidt, and joined you; and upon your way to the vacant lot you picked up Billy Lunt and Chub Thornbury.

The four of you succeeded in all talking at once: the Second-streets were great big fellows; their pitcher was Doc Kennedy and it wasn’t fair, because he threw as hard as he could, and he was nearly sixteen; Hop Hopkins said he’d be “empire”; Red Conroy was going to play, and he always was wanting to fight; darn it—if Fat only wouldn’t pitch, but let somebody else do it! Bob Leslie could throw an awful big “in,” etc.

The fateful lot dawned upon the right, around the corner of an alley fence. Hurrah, there they are! You see Nixie and Tom Kemp, and Hod O’Shea, and Bob Leslie, and Spunk, and Screw Major, and Ted Watson, and Slim Harding, and the redoubtable Red Conroy (engaged in bullying a smaller boy), and others who must be the remainder of the Second-streets.

“Hello, kids,” you say, and likewise say your three companions; and with bat trailing you stalk with free and easy dignity into the crowd.

“Where’s Fat? Who’s seen Fat?” asked everybody of everybody; for Captain Fat was the sole essential personage lacking. However, even without him, pending his arrival the scene was one of stirring animation.

Thick and fast flew here and there the several balls on the grounds, each nine keeping to itself, and each boy throwing “curves”—or, at least, thus essaying.

You yourself, brave in your splendor of blue star and red stripe, endeavored, by now and then negligently catching with one hand, to make it plain that you were virtually a professional.

The Second-streets were as yet ununiformed, even in sections. But they were a rugged, rough-and-ready set, and two of them had base-ball shoes on, proving that they were experts.

“Here’s Fat! Here comes Fat!” suddenly arose the welcoming cry; and appareled in his regimentals, his cap announcing to all beholders his high rank, panting, hot, perspiring, up hustled the leader of the North Stars.

It was time to begin.

“Who’s got a ball?” demanded Umpire Hopkins, sometimes called Harry, but more generally known as Hop or Hoptoad.

The query disclosed a serious condition. Balls there were, but not suitable for a championship match game. They were ten- and fifteen-centers, as hard as grapeshot or already knocked flabby.

“Where’s your ball, Fat?” you asked incautiously.

“In my pocket,” admitted Fat—a bulging fact that he could not well deny.

“What is it? Le’ ’s see, Fat,” demanded Captain Spunk.

“It’s a regular dollar league,” you informed glibly; and Fat, with mingled pride and reluctance, extracted it from the pocket of his knickerbockers,—peeled it, so to speak, into the open,—and handed it out for inspection.

“Gee!” commented Spunk, thumbing it, and chucking it up and catching it. “It’s a dandy! Come on, kids; here’s a ball!”

“But if you use my ball, you’ve got to give us our outs,” bargained Fat, dismayed.

“G’wan!” growled Red Conroy. “Don’t you do it, Spunk. ‘Tain’t goin’ to hurt his old ball any.”

Awed by the ever-belligerent Red, Fat submitted to the customary lot by bat. Spunk tossed a bat at him, and he caught it, with an elaborate show of method, about the middle; then with alternate hands they proceeded to cover it upward to the end.

The last hand for which there was space was Fat’s; by no manner of means could Spunk squeeze his grimy fist into the two inches left.

“We’ll take our outs,” majestically asserted Captain Fat; whereat whooped shrilly all the North Stars, and quite regardless of their affiliations whooped shrilly the spectators also, composed of small brothers and a few friends about equally divided between the contestant nines.

Some preliminaries were yet to be gone through with. Doc Kennedy was protested because he pitched so swift.

“Aw, _I_ won’t throw hard,” he assured bluffly.

“Of course not! _He’s_ easy to hit,” chorused his companions.

Then, in view of the fact that Billy Lunt had a sore finger, as evidenced by a cylinder of whitish rag (which he slipped off, obligingly, whenever solicited), it was agreed that he be allowed to catch the third strike on the first bounce.

A foul over the back-stop fence was out; a like penalty was attached to flies over the boundary walks.

And now, turning hand-springs and otherwise gamboling exultantly, the North Stars scattered to their respective positions.

Away out in center-field you prepared to guard your territory. You bent over, with your hands upon your knees, and ever and anon you spat fiercely, sometimes upon the ground and sometimes into your kid glove. This was the performance of the players upon the town’s nine, the Red Stockings and evidently greatly added to their efficiency.

Besides, on the edge of the walk just back of you were sitting and swinging their slim legs two little girls, whom it was pleasant to impress.

Overhead the sun was blazing hot, but not to you; underfoot the dust from a long dry spell lay choking thick, but not to you; a “darning-needle” whizzed past, and you scarcely ducked, although he might be bent upon sewing up your ears. Your work was too stern to admit of your noticing sun, or dust, or mischievous dragon-fly. So you spat into your glove, replaced your hands on your knees, and waited. “Hello, Johnny!” piped one of the little girls; but you deigned not to make answer.

To right and to left were the Kemp boys, with their hands upon _their_ knees; and before were the infielders, with their hands likewise upon _their_ knees; that is, all except the pitcher.

“Play ball!” gruffly bade the umpire.

Captain Spunk advanced to the slab.

“Gimme a low ball,” he ordered, sticking out his bat to indicate the proper height that would meet his wishes.

Captain Fat rolled the ball rapidly between his palms, and thus having imparted to it what he fondly believed was a mysterious twist, hurled it.

“One ball!” cried the umpire.

Captain Spunk banged the slab with his bat.

“Aw, gimme a low ball over the plate!” he urged.

Again the pitcher rubbed twist into the sphere, and out in center—field you hung upon his motions.

“One strike!” declared the umpire, and a great shout of derision arose from the North Stars and their adherents.

Captain Fat smiled wickedly: the unfortunate batter was being fooled by those deceptive curves.

“What did you strike at that fer—’way up over yer head!” censured Red Conroy, angrily.

“Darn it! gimme a good low ball! You’re ’fraid to!” challenged Captain Spunk.

Whack! He had hit it. Right between Short-stop Chub’s legs it darted, and you and left-field together stopped it, but too late to prevent the runner’s reaching first.

Chub came in for a tongue-lashing from all sides; and then Spunk stole second, and Billy threw over Bob’s head there (at the same time throwing the rag cylinder, also, half-way to the pitcher’s box), and you desperately fielded the ball in, and Fat got it, and threw over Hod’s head at third, and to the wild cries of “Home! Home! Sock her home!” Nixie got it and threw it at Billy; but nevertheless Spunk, spurred on by the frantic exhortations of his fellows, panting “Tally one!” crossed the slab.

Triumphantly cheered the Second—streets, and busily flashed the jack-knife of each spectator as he cut a tally-notch in a stick.

Billy ran forward and reclaimed his precious rag.

Ten more tallies were recorded before the half-inning closed. The whole North Star nine was red from running after the ball and disputing with the umpire—disputes into which everybody on the ground had earnestly entered. Red Conroy had threatened to “smash” several North Stars, you among them; Catcher Billy had long since witnessed his cylinder trampled into the diamond and ruined; Captain Fat had tried all the most deadly twists in his repertoire; when, finally, hot and irritated, you and yours had come in.

And now, reminding Pitcher Doc that he had promised not to throw hard, Billy stepped to the plate, to hit, to reach first, daringly to steal second, foolishly to be caught between bases, successfully to dash past Red, who endeavored to trip him, and out of the confusion safely to attain third, whence soon he galloped home, and tallied.

“’Leven to five!” declared the sprawling spectators, every one a score-keeper, to each other, as at last in scampered the Second-streets and out lagged the North Stars.

You had not batted, and you were relieved, because batting was a great responsibility, with your critical fellows advising you, and castigating you whenever you missed.

In this their next inning the Second-streets made fourteen! Notwithstanding Fat’s utmost art, as signified by his various occult motions, they batted him only too easily, and kept infield and outfield chasing all over the lot. Yet he angrily refused to “let somebody else pitch.” Bob Leslie even attempted to take the ball away from him and forcibly trade places—a mutiny which called forth an “Aw, g’wan an’ play ball, you kids!” from the waiting batter, Screw Major.

“Why don’t you fellows stop some of them grounders, then?” retorted Fat to derogatory accusations. “Gee whiz! You don’t stop nothin’!”

Thus it resolved into a question of whether ’t was not stopping, or having o’ermuch to stop, that brought disaster.

It was your turn. You faced the mighty Doc. He threw, and the ball came like a cannon—shot, you thought.

“You’re throwin’ swift!” you remonstrated.

“Shut up!” sneered Red, from third. “Who’s a—throwin’ swift? Give him one in the head, Doc!”

Blindly you struck, and the condemnations of your mentors squatting anear raked you fore and aft.

Quite unexpectedly you hit it. You did not know where it went, but you scudded for first.

“Second! Second!” gesticulating frantically, bawled all your companions, coaching you onward.

“Second! Second!” bawled with equal fervor your opponents, coaching the fielder.

You grabbed off your cap,—it is strange how much faster a boy can run when thus assisted,—and madly dug for second. Praise be! There you were, beating the ball, which appeared from a mysterious somewhere, by a hair’s-breadth.

You stuck to second, meanwhile dancing and prancing to tantalize the pitcher, until another hit forwarded you to third, for which you slid, not because it was absolutely necessary to slide, but because the slide was a part of the game.

Here, at third, while you were dreaming of the home slab, and the honor of admonishing, hoarsely, for the information of the world, “Tally me!” Red, the ruthless, abruptly gave you a shove, hurling you from position.

“Quick, Doc!” he cried.

Doc responded with the ball.

“Out!” decreed the umpire.

“But he shoved me! He shoved me off the base!” you shrieked.

“_Who_ shoved yer? I didn’t, neither! G’wan! Yer out; don’t you hear the empire?” snarled back Red.

“You did, too!” you asserted.

“He did, too! No fair! He shoved him like everything!” vociferated all the North Stars and their supporters.

“You’re out! You’re out!” gibed the Second-streets, from catcher to farthest fielder.

“Out!” majestically pronounced the umpire again.

Slowly, obedient to the higher authority represented in the freckled-faced Hoptoad, you walked down the base-line. In some way, apparently, you had disgraced your blue star, begrimed from your manful slide, for “Why did you let him touch you?” accused your comrades.

The idea! How could you help it, you’d like to know.

* * * * *

It was the first half of the fifth inning. The score, according to the notches on the sticks, was fifty to thirty-one, in favor of the Second-streets. Those spectators who had exercised the forethought to start with long sticks were in clover, while those with short sticks were having hard work to find space for all the runs.

The sun was not so high as when the game began, neither were your spirits. Much excited chasing, and much strenuous yelling, had told upon you. Your face was streaked; your hair was in dank disorder; your blue star flapped, and your waistband sagged behind, mourning for departed buttons. You were what mothers style “a perfect sight.”

The air had been rent by incessant wranglings. Tom Kemp and Screw Major had indulged in a brief rough-and-tumble, because Screw had thought that Tom had purposely trodden upon his sore toe, Screw injudiciously being barefoot.

Every member of the North Stars had committed egregious errors, and had been tartly excoriated by all hands. You yourself had muffed, and had thrown the ball seven ways for Sunday.

Fat was still doggedly clinging to pitch, and Doc was throwing swift. The two little girls, once your admirers, had gone away in disgust. And the score, as remarked above, was fifty to thirty-one.

Tug McCormack it was who picked out one of Fat’s wonderful twisters and batted it over your head. After it you raced, deliriously discarding, of course, your sadly abused cap, that you might gain in speed. Behind you bellowed friends and enemies, and around the bases was pelting Tug.

Where was the ball—oh, where _was_ it! It must have struck a can or stick, and bounded crooked.

“Hurry! Hurry!” exhorted the Second-streets to Tug.

“Home! Home! Home with it!” exhorted the North Stars to you.

“Pick it up now and look for it afterward!” yelled second base.

“What’s the matter with you? It’s right there!” yelled Captain Fat.

“Darn it! Ain’t you got eyes?” yelled left-field, and “You darned fool!” yelled right-field, converging from each side.

“Lost ball!” you screamed, tramping hither and thither to show that you spoke truth.

“Lost ball!” screamed the Kemp brothers.

“Lost ball! Lo-o-ost ba-a-all!” chimed in the North Stars generally.

But Tug had scored.

“No fair!” objected Billy Lunt. “He’s got to go back to second. Lost ball! Don’t you hear? Lost ball!”

“I don’t care. ’Tain’t my fault,” confuted Tug.

“Course not!” said Captain Spunk, scornfully.

“But you can’t come in on a lost ball; can he, Hop?” appealed Billy to the umpire.

“Shut up! What yer talkin’ about? Course he can,” affirmed Red.

“Shut up yourself!” hotly bade Billy. “_You_ aren’t runnin’ the game. Can he, Hop?”

“I dunno!” confessed Umpire Hop, digging with his toe at a mound of dirt.

“Ya-a-a-a-ah!” sneered Red at the discomfited Billy.

“Well, he can’t just the samee!” resolved Captain Fat. “It’s my ball.”

“Just the samee, he can!” contradicted Captain Spunk. “It’s my father’s lot.”

“Lost ball! Lo-o-ost ba-a-all!” you and Nixie and Tom had been calling as unceasingly as the tolling of a bell; and continuing the discussion, which abated never, the members of both nines, and the spectators, who also were the score-keepers, scattered over the ground to assist in the search.

It seemed that no effort or artifice, even to lying down and rolling where the weeds were thick, could bring to light that ball, until suddenly piped little Jamie Watson:

“Red Conroy’s runnin’ off!”

“He’s got it, I bet you! Hey! Stop, thief!” hailed Tom, quickly.

“Drop that ball! Stop, thief!” swelled the chorus.

But down the alley legged Red, and disappeared over a fence. Evidently he had “got it.”

“Wait till I catch him!” promised Fat, in deep, wrathful tones.

* * * * *

You ought to have been very tired that evening at the supper-table, but you were not, for in those days you never were tired, save momentarily. However, you still were green and brown in spots that your hurried washing had not touched, and dusty in other sections that your equally hurried brushing had omitted. Your face was as red as a setting sun, and you were full of experiences—a fulness that did not in the slightest impair your appetite.

“Who beat?” had inquired mother, as you had come trudging in.

“We only played four innin’s, and they were fifty and we were thirty-one, and then Red Conroy stole the ball,” you explained.

“Well, who beat?” asked father, at the table.

“Nobody did,” you stated, this solution having occurred to you. “We didn’t finish, ’cause Red Conroy he ran off with the ball.”

“But what was the score when this happened?” pursued father.

“Fifty to thirty-one—but it was only four innings,” you answered, with a wriggle.

“And who made the fifty?” persisted father, ignoring mother’s warning frown.

“They—they did,” you blurted; and then you hastened to add, “But they’re lots bigger’n us.”

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YOU AT SCHOOL

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YOU AT SCHOOL

NOW and again you dream one special dream. Suddenly you find yourself back in school. There you are, a great awkward man, squeezing into the old familiar seat and essaying some strangely mixed-up lesson. And about you are the mates of yore, who have not, apparently, grown a bit.

Although they seem not to notice anything peculiar in your presence, nevertheless your position is decidedly embarrassing to you. You feel that you must mind the teacher, of course, and yet you cannot, for the life of you, get that lesson! What a gawk you are! And how in the world are you ever going to stand this awful reversal?

Then you awaken, and with a sigh of relief discover yourself, in the gray of the morning, safely brought down to date, in your bed.

And once more you sigh, but this time not in relief. It is a sigh tenderly laid by retrospection upon the urn of the past.

In your dream the schoolroom was unusually small, and your seat was constricted to the extent that your knees were tightly pressed against the under side of the desk, while the edge of it was creasing your stomach. However, probably it was not that the room and the seat had shrunk; it was that you had expanded beyond limits.

In the days when it was quite proper that you should be in school, the room was extensive indeed, and the seat was ample for innumerable wriggles. For instance, it permitted you to slide down until, reaching forward with your two feet, you engaged the insteps of Billy Lunt, and hauling back with all your might, deliciously held him so that he could move only from the waist upward. Abruptly you released him, and his feet dropped with a big thump that made the teacher frown.

This seat and desk was your little state, surrounded by other little states similar to it, and all ruled by “teacher,” who, like some Pallas Athena, from her Olympia platform surveyed and appraised, bade and forbade.

Your state was bounded on the rear by Snoopie Mitchell’s, on the front by Billy Lunt’s, on the right and the left by a river, or aisle, such as at regular intervals divided the country and opened up the interior to travel.

This was a country of equal suffrage; some of the states were feminine, some were masculine. All, but especially the masculine, were liable to internal troubles, produced through external agencies.

As example, the bent pin was an indefatigable disturber of the peace. It would intrude at the slightest opportunity, and the first thing that you knew it was in your midst—almost literally. The canny explored their seat of state (or their state of seat, if preferred) with their hands, before venturing to settle for the pursuance of routine duties.

Poor, long-suffering Billy Lunt (yet poor you, as well; for although you are behind him, the mischievous Snoopie is behind _you_)! Down he plumps, and up he jumps with a wild “Yow!” at which your whole being exults even while your heart beats uneasily. You descry, where he is frantically clutching, the steely glint of _it_!

“Will, sit down!” thunders the teacher.

This, forsooth, is adding insult to injury; for had he been able to sit, assuredly he would not thus have arisen. In a moment he cautiously, gingerly obeys, at the same time holding into sight the pin, as though it were a monstrosity, so that all must see.

To “yow” very loudly, and to expose the cause with great ostentation to the utmost publicity, was the resort of every pin-afflicted petty ruler.

“John, did you put that pin on Will’s seat?” demands the teacher.

The wave of sniggers that had swelled during Billy’s antics ebbs and dies, and all the world listens for your reply.

With the frankest astonishment—astonishment that ought to have completely turned suspicion—you have been gazing at the Lunt performance. Has he gone crazy? What can ail him? Who could have done it to him?

This simulated wonder is _your_ part of the program—your voluntary part, that is.

“John, I ask you if you put that pin there,” reiterates the persistent examiner, judge, and executioner.

And now that the glamour of the deed has faded, how you wish that you had _not_! For the voluntary part of the program is always followed by an involuntary part.

All in all, the possession of a state in these united states is fraught with peril. So much is prohibited. It is unlawful to have a poor memory or a dull brain or a careless tongue; it is unlawful to carry on intercourse, either written or oral or by signs, with neighbor states; it is unlawful to import articles for consumption—such as cinnamon drops, or lemon drops, or jujube, or licorice; while to import gum is a capital offense.

Nevertheless, gum is imported and secreted by being stuck to the inner surface of the desk-top, thence to be peeled off at recess and at closing-time, and chewed. Sometimes it is forgotten, and the janitor contemptuously scrapes it to the floor for his dust-heap, or a successor to you rapturously finds it. Whenever one moves into a new state, one runs a pleasurable chance of discovering a gum-deposit.

The principal penalties are “stayin’-after-school,” “gettin’-sent-home,” and “lickin’s.”

It is the close of a day in this despotic monarchy, and the despot has tapped her bell for books to be put away. The next tap will mean dismissal; but between taps comes the allotment of punishments.

You reflect—and regret. There was once during the day when you asked Billy Lunt if he had “the first example.” You whispered it very circumspectly, but the unruly sibilants in your tones somehow spread into the open. “Teacher” pricked her ears in your direction, and with her pencil she apparently made a memorandum upon her ready slip.

Was it your name she jotted? Or was it Billy’s? He was in the act of showing you his slate. You are ungenerous enough to hope that it was Billy’s.

In the meantime you hold your breath (as, in similar anxiety, round about you do your compatriots, save the goody-goodies and the “teacher’s pets,” whose names never are read) and listen.

The kids are going swimming; the signal has been passed along. You have set your heart upon going with them. Consequently, never have you felt so repentant, so full of high resolves and the best intentions, and your appealing gaze might well have moved a stone, to say nothing of a teacher.

“Those whose names I read may remain,” she announces calmly: “Sam Jessup, Dolly Smith, Horace Brown, Leonard Irving, Patrick Conroy, Olga Jansen, _John Walker_!”

Crushed, you hear the second tap; freed, the others rise; out they file, but you stay behind—you and a few companions in misery scattered at wide intervals through the nearly deserted room.

From without sound gay shouts and laughter, growing fainter and fainter, and dying in the distance.

You are marooned.

“Take your books and go to work at some lesson!” orders the teacher.

Maybe, if you strive hard and obediently, she will let you go soon. Some of the prisoners shuffle angrily, and rebelliously bang things about in their desks; but you promptly open your geography, and hoping that her eye is noting you, pretend to apply yourself to its text. Silence falls, broken only by the measured _tick-tock_ of the clock on the wall.

Presently you glance up. Five minutes have passed. “Teacher,” with eyes fastened upon her desk, is engaged in correcting a quantity of exercises. She seems to pay not the slightest attention to the clock.

You give a weary little shuffle—your first—and turn a page.

Two more minutes. Even yet you could catch the kids. How good you are! But, blame it, what is the sense, if she does not notice?

_Tick-tock, tick-tock_, repeats the monitor on the wall, checking off the wasted moments.

Ten minutes! Is she going to keep you all night? Doesn’t she see what time it is getting to be? You make a lot of noise, to warn her; but she never looks. For all that is evident, she might have forgotten the existence of you and everybody else. She simply goes on reading and marking.

Twelve minutes. You raise your hand. You keep it raised. You shuffle some more, and you cough, and you shuffle again.

“Well, John, what is it?” she vouchsafes in a tired voice.

She has heard you all the time, but you don’t know it. Neither do you know that she has been reading you while reading scrawly exercises.

“How long do I have to stay?”

“Until I tell you you may go.”

Fifteen minutes. You throw off your hypocritical sainthood, and you lapse into your genuine boiling, raging self. Darn her. Darn the teacher! Darn the old teacher! What does she care about going swimming? She just wants to keep a fellow in! You’ll show her sometime! And you shuffle and scrape and kick and bang, and she apparently pays not the least heed to it.

The darned old thing (although, in truth, she is _not_ old, save in boy eyes and in boy ways)!

Twenty minutes! Darn the—

“You may go now, Johnny.”

She cuts your condemnatory sentence right in the middle; and not finishing it, you hastily throw the geography into your desk, and make for the door. On your way you dart a glance at her, wondering if she knows what names you have been calling her. She smiles at you, and you feel rather sheepish.

After all, you have time for a swim, delightfully prefaced by throwing mud at the whole crowd in ahead of you.

Staying-after-school is a penalty for misdemeanors; for crimes there is “gettin’-sent-home”—not bad at all until you get there, furnishing, as it does, a vacation—and “lickin’s,” which sounds worse than it really is.

“Lickin’s” don’t hurt half the time. Never would a boy admit, outside, that a licking hurt; he “bellered just for fun”! The fact is, lots of the kids declared they had rather take a licking than be kept after school, for a licking was soon over, and then you were through.

But by virtually unanimous vote the kids all asserted that they had rather be licked, any day, or stay after school for a whole month, than “speak.”

It is Friday afternoon—a fateful Friday when sashes and squeaky shoes and slicked hair and significantly arrayed chairs herald “speaking day.” And you are among the elect, as testify your red tie without and your uneasy heart within.

Early the books are put away, and with the clearing of the desks are cleared also the metaphorical decks.

A bustle is heard at the threshold, and in come the first of the visitors—a pair of mothers. Whose mothers they are is speedily indicated by the flaming ears of a very red girl and a very red boy, at whom, as the intelligence spreads, all the school looks.

The mothers rustle chairward, settle into place, and smilingly wait.

Another bustle! More visitors! Out of the corner of your eye you slant one apprehensive glance in their direction, and then you quickly turn your head the other way. It is _your_ mother. You felt it even before Snoopie gave you a painful telegraphic kick. She has come. She said that she might. You have been alternately hoping and fearing. Now you know.

In impish ecstasy Snoopie keeps dealing you irritating jabs. _His_ mother _never_ comes.

Teacher moves from the platform and seats herself at one side. It is the final preparation. In her hand she holds the list of prospective performers, and somewhere adown it is your name.

You would give worlds to know just where—just whom you follow. The chief agony attached to the afternoon is in the racking uncertainty as to when one will be called upon. The nearer the top of the list, the better, for thereafter one will be free to revel in the plight of others. But to be reserved until toward the last, and to sit in a cold sweat through most of the afternoon—ah, this is the suspense that fairly curls one’s toes!

Listen! She is going to read.

“Harry Wilson. Recitation: ‘George Nidiver.’”

Amid oppressive silence Harry clumps up the aisle, and stumbling miserably on the platform step receives a tribute of grateful titters. Teacher taps rebukingly with her pencil, and frowns. Harry bobs his head for a bow, and, white and blinky, proceeds:

“Men have done brave deeds,
And bards have sung them well:
I of good George Nidiver
Now the tale will tell.

“In California mountains
A hunter bold was he:
Keen his eye and sure his aim
As any you should see.

“A little Indian boy
Followed him everywhere,
Eager to share the hunter’s joy,
The hunter’s meal to share.”

You would bask the more unrestrictedly in Harry’s presence did you not see in him your unlucky self; and while he is speaking you feverishly go over and over parts of your own piece.

As Harry approaches the end, his pace grows faster and faster, until at a gallop he dashes through the concluding stanza, offers a second bob in lieu of other punctuation, long lacking, and clumps back to his seat, where he grins rapturously, as if he had at last had a tooth pulled.

How you envy Harry’s light-heartedness as with bated breath you strain your ears for the next announcement!

This proves to be “Nina Gottlob. Composition: ‘Kindness.’” After Nina somebody else, not you, is summoned; and thus name after name is read, with you hanging on by your very eyebrows, before, at the most unexpected moment, come to you, like the crack o’ doom, the words: “_Johnny Walker_. Recitation: ‘The Soldier of the Rhine.’”

The teacher looks at you expectantly. Snoopie trips you as you tower into the aisle. Oh, the tremendous distance which you, all feet and arms, traverse in getting to the platform! You mount; and here you stand, a giant, and bow. Away below, and stretching into space remote, are faces of friends and enemies—the ones (mostly those of little girls) gravely staring at you, and the others twisted into hideous grimaces calculated to make you laugh. As in a dream you witness your mother gazing up at you with beaming, prideful, but withal anxious eye.

Very vacant-headed, you drag from your throat a thin stranger voice which says:

“A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;
There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears,”

and mechanically maintains the narrative for some moments, and then on a sudden peters out!

You cast about for something with which to start it up again, but you light upon nothing. All the faces in front watch you curiously, amusedly, grinningly. Helpless, you look in the direction of Billy Lunt, upon whose desk, as you passed, you had laid the book, that he might prompt you, if necessary.

Billy has lost the place, and is desperately running his forefinger adown the page.

“‘Tell my mother that her other sons—’” presently he assists, in husky tones; and, as if set in motion by the vibrations, your voice, with an apologetic “Oh, yes,” goes ahead once more.

“‘Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age,
For I was ay a truant bird, that thought his home a cage;
For my father was a soldier—’”

And so forth.

Several times it stops again, but Billy sits alert to fill in each hiatus; and vastly relieved in mind you triumphantly regain your seat, only to ascertain, to your disgust, that you are the last of the afternoon’s victims.

Escape from this despotism of school, with its penalties and speaking and other disagreeable features, which combined to outweigh any possible advantages or profit, was always engaging in prospect, although apt to be unsatisfactory in realization.

You longed to be a man. You wondered how it would seem to walk about paying no attention whatsoever to the old bell. Were the people outside the school aware of their fortunate state? Gee!

It was an odd fact that in the week the finest and most interesting days, out of doors, habitually were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday—and Sunday. The best fishing invariably came on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—and Sunday. You always felt the most like having fun on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—and Sunday. What was measly little Saturday, eclipsed so by these other days all-glorious without!

If your folks were only like Snoopie’s folks you could play hooky once in a while. Snoopie asserted that his father “didn’t care.” Yours did—very much.

The sole recourse which remained for you was being sick; and insomuch as the real article was annoyingly scarce with you, it was requisite that you manufacture some substitute.

’Tis a spell of beautiful weather—the kind of weather that came, as aforesaid, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays—and Sundays. Your feet lagged to school, and your heart kept pace with them. Now you are idling in your seat, utterly unable to work. A vagrant bee hums in through an open window, and hums out through another. A woodpecker drums, as on a sounding-board, upon the spire of the Congregational church. A blue jay screams derisively, like an exultant truant, among the elms arching the street in front. All these things upset you, stirring as they do the _Wanderlust_ of boyhood.

The sky never has been so blue, the grass and the trees never so green, the sunshine never so golden, nor the air so mellow, as at recess.

You hate school. You don’t want to go in. Snoopie volunteers:

“Let’s play hooky this afternoon, and go fishin’!”

“My father won’t let me,” you declare.

“Aw, come on. He’ll never know,” scoffs Snoopie.

But he would, just the same.

The only chance you have is to be sick.

It is over-late to be sick to-day, for there is a ball game after school, and you are to take part. If you are sick this evening, when the sports of the day are finished, your mother will accuse you of having played too hard, and such a notion would turn your attack into a boomerang.

You will be sick in the morning.

Accordingly, with great languidness you flop into your chair at breakfast, and carefully dawdle over your food. You endeavor not to eat, although, as luck would have it, the menu is one of which you are particularly fond. But so much the better.

“Why, John, you aren’t eating! Isn’t the breakfast good?” exclaims mother, instantly noting.

“Yes, ’m.”

“Then why don’t you eat it?”

“Come, eat your breakfast, Johnny,” supplements father.

“I don’t want to,” you plead.

“Don’t you feel well?” asks mother anxiously.

“Not very.”

“Where do you feel sick?”

“Oh, my head aches.”

“Give me your hand.”

You lay it in hers, and she thoughtfully holds it and scrutinizes you.

“I do believe that the boy has a little fever, Henry,” she says to father.

“Maybe he’s caught cold. Better have him keep quiet to-day,” suggests father. “I’ll do his chores this morning.”

You really begin to feel ill, the word “fever” has such a portentous sound. And you thereby submit the easier to being stowed upon the sofa against the wall, your head upon a pillow and the ready afghan over your feet and legs.

“There’s so much measles about now; don’t you think we ought to have Dr. Reese come in and look at him?” remarks mother to father, in that impersonal mode of conversation, like an aside, which seems to presuppose that you have no ears.

“N-n-no,” decides father. “I’d wait and see if he doesn’t feel better soon.”

In his eye there is a twinkle, at which mother’s face clears, and they exchange glances which you do not comprehend.

The first bell rings. The chattering boys and girls on their way to school pass the house. But no school for you, you bet! And the last bell rings. As you hark to some belated, luckless being scampering madly by, you hug yourself. Let the blamed old bell bang; you don’t care!

The summons dies away in a jarring clang. Here you are, safe.

You remain prone as long as you can, but your sofa-station at last grows unbearably irksome. It is time that you pave the way for more action. Mother is bustling in and out of the room, and you are emboldened to hail her:

“I want to get up.”

“Not yet,” she cautions. “Lie quiet and try to go to sleep.”

Sleep!

She places her cool palm, for a moment, upon your forehead.

“I don’t think that you’ve got much fever, after all,” she hazards. “But lie still.”

Out of policy you strive to obey for a while longer, but every muscle in your eager body rebels. You twist and toss; you stick up one knee, and then the other, and then both at once; and finally a leg dangles to the floor over the outer edge of your unhappy bed.

“I want to get up. I feel lots better,” you whine.

“No,” rebukes mother, firmly. “Papa said that you were to keep quiet.”

“But I will be quiet,” you promise.

“W-well, only you must not go outdoors,” she warns.

However, anything to be released from that narrow sofa; so off you roll, and apply yourself further to the delicate business of gaining health not too rapidly, yet conveniently.

It appears, however, that, according to some occult line of reasoning, “a boy who is not well enough to do his chores or go to school is not well enough to play”! The more vigorous you grow, the more this maxim is rubbed into you.

When the afternoon has fairly set in, you have become so very, very well that in your opinion you may, without risk of a relapse, play catch against the barn—which, of course, would be a preliminary warming up, leading to meeting the kids after school. You propose the half of your project to your mother; but she sees only impropriety in it, and proffers that if you really need exercise you may finish uncompleted chores!

After school you hear the other boys tearing around; but you must “keep quiet”! The only consideration won by your suddenly bursting health is intimation from mother that unless you moderate, you will be deemed strong enough to stand a “good whipping.”

In fact, the whole bright day proves more of a farce than you had anticipated. What is the use of being sick, if you are not allowed to have any fun?

By bedtime your mysterious malady is by common consent a thing of antiquity and in the morning you go to school.

The time arrives when you go no more. You yourself are now of that free company whom you have so envied. Yet it does not seem such a wonderful company, after all. You find that your position still has limitations. When you had lived within, it was permitted you to pass and mingle with the life without; but now that you have chosen the without, not again may you pass within, save in dreams.

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CHUMS

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CHUMS

DON’T you remember when, your mother laughingly dissenting, your father said that you might have him, and with rapture in your heart and a broad smile on your face you went dancing through the town to _get_ him?

There was quite a family of them—the old mother dog and her four children. Of the puppies it was hard to tell which was the best; that is, hard for the disinterested observer. As for yourself, in the very incipiency of your hesitation something about one of the doggies appealed to you. Your eyes and hands wandered to the others, but invariably came back to him.

With the mother anxiously yet proudly looking on, you picked him up in your glad young arms, and he cuddled and squirmed and licked your face; and in an instant the subtle bonds of chumship were sealed forever. You had chosen.

“I guess I’ll take this one,” you said to the owner.

And without again putting him down you carried him off, and home.

How unhappy he appeared to be, during his first day in his new place! He whined and whimpered in his plaintive little tremolo, and although you thrust a pannikin of milk under his ridiculous nose, and playmates from far and near hastened over to inspect him and pay him tribute, he refused to be appeased. He simply squatted on his uncertain, wabbly haunches, and cried for “mama.”

You fixed him an ideal nest in the barn; but it rather made your heart ache—with that vague ache of boyhood—to leave him there alone for the night, and you went back many times to induce him to feel better. Finally, you were withheld by your father’s: “Oh, I wouldn’t keep running out there so much, if I were you. Let him be, and pretty soon he’ll curl up and go to sleep.”

Sure enough, his high utterances ceased, and nothing more emanated from him. Whereupon your respect for your father’s varied store of knowledge greatly increased.

In the morning you hastened out before breakfast to assure yourself that your charge had survived the night; and you found that he had. He was all there, every ounce of him.

What a wriggly, rolly, awkward lump of a pup he was, anyway! How enormous were his feet, how flapping his ears, how whip-like his tail, how unreliable his body, how erratic his legs! Yet he was pretty. He was positively beautiful.

Your mother could not resist him. Can a woman resist anything that is young and helpless and soft and warm? With pictures in her mind of ruined flowers and chewed-up household furnishings, she gingerly stooped down to pet him; and at the touch of his silky coat she was captive.

“Nice doggy!” she cooed.

Upon which he ecstatically endeavored to swallow her finger, and smeared her slippers with his dripping mouth, and peace was established. Thereafter mother was his stoutest champion.

The christening proved a matter requiring considerable discussion. When it comes right down to it, a name for a dog is a difficult proposition. It may be easy to name other persons’ dogs, but your own dog is different.

Your father and mother, and even the hired girl, proposed names, all of which you rejected with scorn, until, suddenly, into existence popped a name which came like an old friend. You seized it, attached it to the pup, and it just fitted. No longer was he to be referred to as “it,” or “he,” or “the puppy.” He possessed a personality.

The hired girl—and in those days there were more “hired girls” than “domestics”—was the last to yield to his sway. She did not like dogs or cats about the house; dogs caused extra-work, and cats got under foot.

But upon about the third morning after his arrival you caught her surreptitiously throwing him a crust from among the table leavings that she was bearing to the alley; and you knew that he had won her. Aye, he had won her. You also found out that he much preferred a crust thus flung to him from the garbage to any carefully prepared mess of more wholesome food.

Probably this subtle flattery pleased the girl, for although her grimness never vanished, once in a while you descried her smiling through it, in the course of a trip to the back fence while the puppy faithfully gamboled at her skirts in tumultuous expectation of another fall of manna.

He grew visibly—like the seed planted by the Indian fakir. Enormous quantities of bread and milk he gobbled, always appearing in fear lest the supply should sink through the floor before he had eaten his fill. Between meals his body waned to ordinary size; but, mercy! what a transformation as he ate! At these times it swelled and swelled, until, the pan empty, the stomach full, its diameter far exceeded its length.

However, there was a more permanent growth than this, as you discovered when you awoke to the fact that his collar was too tight for him. So you removed it, and in the interval between removing the old and getting the new properly engraved, his neck expanded fully an inch. The old collar would not meet around it when, as a test, you experimented.

So good-by to the collar of puppyhood, and let a real dog’s collar dangle about his neck. The step marked the change from dresses to trousers.

Not only bread and milk and other mushy non-stimulating stuff did he eat, but he ate, or tried to eat, everything else within his reach. Piece-meal, he ate most of the door-mat. He ate sticks of wood, both hard and soft, seemingly preferring a barrel-stave. He ate leaves, and stones, and lumps of dirt, and the heads off the double petunias and the geraniums. He ate a straw hat and a slipper. He attempted the broom and the clothes-line, the latter having upon it the week’s wash, thus adding to the completeness of the menu.

In his fondness for using his uneasy teeth, new and sharp, he would have eaten you, did you not repeatedly wrest your anatomy from his tireless jaws.

As it was, you bore over all your person, and particularly upon your hands and calves, the prints of his ravaging, omnivorous mouth.

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When You Were a BoyChapter I: Part 1

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