Brownsmith's Boy Part 39

"What is?" I asked.

"Haddocks, my lad. They're a trickier kind o' meat than bloaters. I ordered this here for us 'cause it seemed more respectable like, as I'd got company, than herrin'; but it's a mistake."

"But this is very nice," I said, beginning very hungrily upon the hot roll and fish, but with a qualm in my mind as to how it was to be paid for.

"Ye-es," said Ike, after saying "soup" very loudly as he took a long sip of his coffee; "tidyish, my lad, tidyish, but you see one gets eddicated to a herring, and knows exactly where every bone will be. These things seems as if the bones is all nowhere and yet they're everywhere all the time, and so sure as you feel safe and take a bite you find a sharp pynte, just like a trap laid o' purpose to ketch yer."

"Well, there are a good many little bones, certainly," I said.

"Good many! Thick as slugs after a shower. There's one again, sharp as a needle. Wish I'd a red herrin', that I do."

"I say, Ike," I said suddenly, as I was in the middle of my breakfast, "I wish I could make haste and grow into a man."

"Do you, now?" he said with a derisive laugh. "Ah! I shouldn't wonder.

If you'd been a man I s'pose you'd have pitched all those rough uns out o' window, eh?"

"I should have liked to be able to take care of myself," I said.

"Without old Ike, eh, my lad?"

"I don't mean that," I said; "only I should like to be a man."

"Instead o' being very glad you're a boy with everything fresh and bright about you. Red cheeks and clean skin and all your teeth, and all the time to come before you, instead of having to look back and think you're like an old spade--most wore out."

"Oh, but you're so strong, Ike! I should like to be a man."

"Like to be a boy, my lad, and thank G.o.d you are one," said old Ike, speaking as I had never heard him speak before. "It's natur', I s'pose.

All boys wishes they was men, and when they're men they look back on that happiest time of their lives when they was boys and wishes it could come over again."

"Do they, Ike?" I said.

"I never knew a man who didn't," said Ike, making the cups dance on the table by giving it a thump with his fist. "Why, Master Grant, I was kicked about and hit when I was a boy more'n ever a boy was before, but all that time seems bright and suns.h.i.+ny to me."

"But do you think Shock's happy?" I said; "he's a boy, and has no one to care about him."

"Happy! I should just think he is. All boys has troubles that they feels bad at the time, but take 'em altogether they're as happy as can be. Shock's happy enough his way or he wouldn't have been singing all night atop of the load. There, you're a boy, and just you be thankful that you are, my lad; being a boy's about as good a thing as there is."

We had nearly finished our breakfast when Ike turned on me sharply.

"Why, you don't look as if you was glad to be a boy," he said.

"I was thinking about what Mr Brownsmith will say when he knows I've been in such trouble," I replied.

"Ah, he won't like it! But I suppose you ain't going to tell him?"

"Yes," I said, "I shall tell him."

Ike remained silent for a few minutes, and sat slowly filling his pipe.

At last, as we rose to go, after Ike had paid the waitress, he said to me slowly:

"Sometimes doing right ain't pleasant and doing wrong is. It's quite right to go and tell Old Brownsmith and get blowed up, and it would be quite wrong not to tell him, but much the nystest. Howsoever, you tell him as soon as we get back. He can't kill yer for that, and I don't s'pose he'll knock yer down with the kitchen poker and then kick you out. You've got to risk it."

I did tell Old Brownsmith all my trouble when we reached home, and he listened attentively and nodding his head sometimes. Then he said softly, "Ah!" and that was all.

But I heard him scold Master Shock tremendously for going off from his work without leave.

Shock had been looking on from a distance while I was telling Old Brownsmith, and this put it into his head, I suppose, that I had been speaking against him, for during the next month he turned his back whenever he met me, and every now and then, if I looked up suddenly, it was to see him shaking his fist at me, while his hair seemed to stand up more fiercely than ever out of his crownless straw hat like young rhubarb thrusting up the lid from the forcing-pot put on to draw the stalks.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE GARDENER SURGEON.

"People sneer at gardening and gardeners, Grant," said the old gentleman to me one day. "Perhaps you may take to some other occupation when you grow older; but don't you never be ashamed of having learned to be a gardener."

"I'm sure I never shall," I said.

"I hope you will not, my boy, for there's something in gardening and watching the growth of trees and plants that's good for a lad's nature; and if I was a schoolmaster I'd let every boy have a garden, and make him keep it neat. It would be as good a lesson as any he could teach."

"I like gardening more and more, sir," I said.

"That's right, my boy. I hope you do, but you've a deal to learn yet.

Gardening's like learning to play the fiddle; there's always something more to get hold of than you know. I wish I had some more gla.s.s."

"I wish you had, sir," I said.

"Why, boy?--why?" he cried sharply.

"Because you seem as if you'd like it, sir," I said, feeling rather abashed by his sharp manner.

"Yes, but it was so that I should be able to teach you, sir. But wait a bit, I'll talk to my brother one of these days."

Time glided on, and as I grew bigger and stronger I used now and then to go up with Ike to the market. He would have liked me to go every time, but Mr Brownsmith shook his head, and would only hear of it in times of emergency.

"Not a good task for you, Grant," he used to say. "I want you at home."

We were down the garden one morning after a very stormy night, when the wind had been so high that a great many of the fruit-trees had had their branches broken off, and we were busy with ladder, saw, and knife, repairing damages.

I was up the ladder in a fine young apple-tree, whose branch had been broken and was hanging by a few fibres, and as soon as I had fixed myself pretty safely I began to cut, while when I glanced down to see if Old Brownsmith was taking any notice I saw that he was smiling.

"Won't do--won't do, Grant," he said. "Cutting off a branch of a tree that has been broken is like practising amputation on a man. Cut lower, boy."

"But I wanted to save all that great piece with those little boughs," I said.

"But you can't, my lad. Now just look down the side there below where you are cutting, and what can you see?"