Back Home Part 15

"Got 'ny collar-b.u.t.tons?"

"Well, now, I'll just look and see. Here's a beautiful rolled-plate gold watch-chain, with an elegant jewel charm. Lovely blue jewel." He dangles the chain and its rich gla.s.s pendant, and it certainly does look fine.

"That'd cost you $2.50 at the store. How'd that strike you?"

"Hpm. I want a collar-b.u.t.ton."

"Well, now, you hold on a minute. Lemme look again. Ah, here's a package 'at orta have some in it. Yes, sir, here's four of 'em, enough to last you a lifetime; front, back, and both sleeves, the kind that flips and don't tear the b.u.t.tonholes. Well, by ginger! Now, how'd that git in here, I want to know? That gold ring? Well, I don't care. It'll have to go with the collar-b.u.t.tons. Tell you what I'll do with you: I'll let you have this elegant solid gold rolled-plate watch-chain and jewel, this elegant, solid gold ring to git married with--Hay? How about it?--and these four collar-b.u.t.tons for--for--twenty-five cents, or a quarter of a dollar."

That boy never took that quarter out of his breeches pocket. It just jumped out of itself. But I see that you are getting the fidgets. You're hoping that I'll come to the horse-racing pretty soon. You want to have it all brought back to you, the big, big race-track which, as you remember it now, must have been about the next size smaller than the earth's...o...b..t around the sun. You want me to tell about the old farmer with the bunch of timothy whiskers under his chin that gets his old jingling wagon on the track just before a heat is to be trotted, and all the people yell at him: "Take him out!" You want me to tell how the trotters looked walking around in their dusters, with the eye-holes bound with red braid, and how the drivers of the sulkies sat with the tails of their horses tucked under one leg. Well, I'm not going to do anything of the kind, and if you don't like it, you can go to the box-office and demand your money back. I hope you'll get it. First place, I don't know anything about racing, and consequently I don't believe it's a good thing for the country. All I know is, that some horses can go faster than others, but which are the fastest ones I can't tell by the looks, though I have tried several times.... I did not walk back. I bought a round-trip ticket. They will tell you that these events at the County Fair tend to improve the breed of horses. So they do--of fast horses. But the fast horses are no good. They can't any of them go as fast as a nickel trolley-car when it gets out where there aren't any houses. And they not only are no good; they're a positive harm. You know and I know that just as soon as a man gets cracked after fast horses, it's good-by John with him.

In the next place, I wouldn't mind it if it was only interesting to me.

But it isn't. It bores me to death. You sit there and sit there trying to keep awake while the drivers jockey and jockey, scheming to get the advantage of the other fellow, and the bell rings so many times for them to come back after you think: "They're off this time, sure," that you get sick of hearing it. And when they do get away, why, who can tell which horse is in the lead? On the far side of the track they don't appear to do anything but poke along, and once in a while some fool horse will "break" and that's annoying. And then when they come into the stretch, the other folks that see you with the field-gla.s.ses, keep nudging you and asking: "Who 's ahead, mister? Hay? Who's ahead?" And it's ruinous to the voice to yell: "Go it! Go it! Go IT, ye devil, you!" with your throat all clenched that way and your face as red as a turkey-gobbler's. And that second when they are going under the wire, and the horse you rather like is about a nose behind the other one that you despise--Oh, tedious, very tedious. Ho hum, Harry! If I wasn't engaged, I wouldn't marry. Did you think to put a saucer of milk out for the kitty before you locked up the house?

No. Horse-racing bores me to death, and as I am one of the charter members of the Anti-Other-Folks-Enjoyment Society, organized to stop people from amusing themselves in ways that we don't care for, you can readily see that it is a matter of principle with me to ignore horseracing, and not to give it so much encouragement as would come from mentioning it.

If you're so interested in improving the breed of horses by compet.i.tive contests, what 's the matter with that one where the prize is $5 for the team that can haul the heaviest load on a stoneboat, straight pulling?

Pile on enough stones to build a house, pretty near, and the owner of the team, a young fellow with a face like Keats, goes "Ck! Ck! Ck!

Geet... ep... thah BILL! Geet ep, Doll-ay!" and cracks his whip, and kisses with his mouth, and the horses dance and tug, and jump around and strain till the stone-boat slides on the gra.s.s, and then men climb on until the load gets so heavy that the team can't budge it. Then another team tries, and so on, the compet.i.tors jawing and jowering at each other with: "Ah, that ain't fair! That ain't fair! They started it sideways."

"That don't make no difference."

"Yes, it does, too, make a difference. Straight ahead four inches.

that's the rule."

"Well, didn't they go straight ahead four inches? What's a matter with ye?"

"I'll darn soon show ye what's the matter with me, you come any o' your shenanigan around here."

"Mighty ready to accuse other folks o' shenannigan, ain't ye? For half a cent I'd paste you in the moot."

"Now, boys! Now boys! None o' that."

Lots more excitement than a horse-race. Lots more improving to the mind, and beneficial to the country.

And if you hanker after the human element of skill, what's the matter with the contest where the women see who can hitch up a horse the quickest? Didn't you have your favorite picked out from the start? I did. She was about thirteen years old, dressed in an organdie, and I think she had light blue ribbons flying from her hat, light blue or pink, I forget which. Her pa helped her unharness, and you could tell by the way he look-at her that he thought she was about the smartest young one for her age in her neighborhood. (You ought to hear her play "General Grant's Grand March" on the organ he bought for her, a fine organ with twenty-four stops and two full sets of reeds, and a mirror in the top, and places to set bouquets and all.) There was a woman in the contest that seemed, by her actions, to think that the others were just wasting their time competing with her, but when they got the word "Go!"

(Old Nate Wells was the judge; he sold out the livery-stable business to Charley, you recollect) her horse backed in wrong, and she got the harness all twisty-ways, and everything went bewitched. And wasn't she provoked, though? Served her right, I say. A little woman beside her was the first to jump into her buggy, and drive off with a strong inhalation of breath, and that nipping together of the lips that says: "A-a-ah! I tell ye!" The little girl that we picked out was hopping around like a scared c.o.c.kroach, and her pa seemed to be saying: "Now, keep cool! Keep cool! Don't get fl.u.s.tered," but when another woman drove off, I know she almost cried, she felt so bad. But she was third, and when she and her pa drove around the ring, the people clapped her lots more than the other two. I guess they must have picked her for a favorite the same as you and I did. Bless her heart! I hope she got a good man when she grew up.

Around back of the Old Settlers' Cabin, where they have the relics, the spinning-wheel, the flax-hackle, and the bunch of dusty tow that n.o.body knows how to spin in these degenerate days; the old flint-lock rifle, and the powder-horn; the tinder-box, and the blue plate, "more'n a hundred years old;" the dog-irons, tongs, poker, and turkey-wing of an ancient fireplace--around back of the Old Settlers' Cabin all the early part of the day a bunch of dirty canvas has been dangling from a rope stretched between two trees. It was fenced off from the curious, but after dinner a stranger in fringy trousers and a black singlet went around picking out big, strong, adventurous young fellows to stand about the wooden ring fastened to the bottom of the bunch of canvas, which went over the smoke-pipe of a sort of underground furnace in which a roaring fire had been built. As the hot air filled the great bag, it was the task of these helpers to shake out the wrinkles and to hold it down.

Older and wiser ones forbade their young ones to go near it. Supposing it should explode; what then? But we have always wanted to fly away up into the air, and what did we come to the Fair for, if not for excitement? The balloon swells out amazingly fast, and when the guy-ropes are loosened and drop to the ground, the elephantine bag clumsily lunges this way and that, causing shrill squeals from those who fear to be whelmed in it. The man in the singlet tosses kerosene into the furnace from a tin cup, and you can see the tall flames leap upward from the flue into the balloon. It grows tight as a drum.

"Watch your horses!" he calls out. There is a pause.... "Let go all!"

The mighty shape shoots up twenty feet or so, and the man in the singlet darts to the corner to cut a lone detaining rope. As he runs he sheds his fringy trousers.

"Good-by, everybody!" he cries out, and the sinister possibilities in that phrase are overlooked in the wonder at seeing him lurch upward through the air, all glorious in black tights and yellow breech-clout.

Up and up he soars above the tree-tops, and the wind gently wafts him along, a pendant to a dusky globe hanging in the sky. He is just a speck now swaying to and fro. The globe plunges upward; the pendant drops like a shot. There is a rustling sound. It is the intake of the breath of horror from ten thousand pairs of lungs. Look! Look! The edges of the parachute ruffle, and then it blossoms out like an opening flower. It bounces on the air a little, and rocking gently sinks like thistle-down behind the woods.

It is all over. The Fair is over. Let's go home. Isn't it wonderful though, what men can do? You'll see; they'll be flying like birds, one of these days. That's what we little boys think, but we overhear old Nate Wells say to Tom Slaymaker, as we pa.s.s them: "Well, I d' know. I d' know 's these here b'loon ascensions is worth the money they cost the 'Sociation. I seen so many of 'em, they don't interest me nummore.

'Less, o' course, sumpun should happen to the feller."

CHRISTMAS BACK HOME

It was the time of year when the store windows are mighty interesting.

Plotner's bakery, that away, 'way back in the summer-time, was an ice-cream saloon, showed a plaster man in the window, with long, white whiskers, in top boots and a brown coat and peaked hat, all trimmed with fur, and carrying a little pinetree with a.r.s.enical foliage. Over his head dangled a thicket of canes hanging by their crooks from a twine string stretched across. They were made of candy striped spirally in red and white. There were candy men and women in the window, and chocolate mice with red eyes, and a big cake, all over frosting, with a candy preacher on it marrying a candy man and lady. The little children stood outside, with their joggerfies, and arithmetics, and spellers, and slates bound in red flannel under their arms, and swallowed hard as they looked. Whenever anybody went in for a penny's worth of yeast and opened the door, that had a bell fastened to it so that Mrs. Plotner could hear in the back room, and come to wait on the customer, the smell of wintergreen and peppermint and lemonsticks and hot taffy gushed out so strong that they couldn't swallow fast enough, but stood there choking and dribbling at the mouth.

Brown's shoe store exhibited green velvet slippers with deers' heads on them, and Galbraith's windows were hung with fancy dressgoods, and handkerchiefs with dogs' heads in the corners; but, next to Plotner's, Case's drug-and-book store was the nicest. When you first went in, it smelled of cough candy and orris root, but pretty soon you could notice the smell of drums and new sleds, and about the last smell, (sort of down at the bottom of things) was the smell of new books, the fish-glue on the binding, and the muslin covers, and the printer's ink, and that is a smell that if it ever gets a good hold of you, never lets go. There were the "Rollo" books, and the "Little Prudy" books, and "Minnie and Her Pets," and the "Elm Island" series, and the "Arabian Nights," with colored pictures, and There were skates all curled up at the toes, and b.a.l.l.s of red and black leather in alternate quarters, and China mugs, with "Love the Giver," and "For a Good Boy" in gilt letters on them.

Kind of Dutch letters they were. And there were dolls with black, s.h.i.+ny hair, and red cheeks, and blue eyes, with perfectly arched eyebrows.

They had on black shoes and white stockings, with pink garters, and they almost always toed in a little. They looked so cold in the window with nothing but a "s.h.i.+mmy" on, and fairly ached to be dressed, and nursed, and sung to. The little girls outside the window felt an emptiness in the hollow of their left arms as they gazed. There was one big doll in the middle all dressed up. It had real hair that you could comb, and it was wax. Pure wax! Yes, sir. And it could open and shut its eyes, and if you squeezed its stomach it would cry, of course, not like a real baby, but more like one of those ducks that stand on a sort of bellows thing.

Though they all "chose" that doll and hoped for miracles, none of them really expected to find it in her stocking sixteen days later. (They kept count of the days.) Maybe Bell Brown might get it; her pa bought her lots of things. She had parlor skates and a parrot, only her ma wouldn't let her skate in the parlor, it tore up the carpet so, and the parrot bit her finger like anything.

The little boys kicked their copper-toed boots to keep warm and quarreled about which one chose the train of cars first, and then began to quarrel over an army of soldiers.

"I choose them!"

"A-aw! You choosed the ingine and the cars."

"Dung care. I choose everything in this whole window."

"A-aw! That ain't fair!"

In the midst of the wrangle somebody finds out that Johnny Pym has a piece of red gla.s.s, and then they begin fighting for turns looking through it at the snow and the court-house. But not for long. They fall to bragging about what they are going to get for Christmas. Eddie Cameron was pretty sure he 'd get a spy-gla.s.s. He asked his pa, and his pa said "Mebby. He'd see about it." Then, just in time, they looked up and saw old man Nicholson coming along with his shawl pinned around him.

They ran to the other side of the street because he stops little boys, and pats them on the head, and asks them if they have found the Savior.

It makes some boys cry when he asks them that.

The Rowan twins--Alfaretta and Luanna May--are working a pair of slippers for their pa, one apiece, because it is such slow work. Along about suppertime they make Elmer Lonnie stay outside and watch for his coming, and he has to say: "h.e.l.lo, pa!" very loud, and romp with him outside the gate so as to give the twins time to gather up the colored zephyrs and things, and hide them in the lower bureau drawer in the spare bedroom. At such a time their mother finds an errand that takes her into the parlor so that she can see that they do not, by any chance, look into the middle drawer in the farther left-hand corner, under the pillow-slips.

One night, just at supper-time, Elmer Lonnie said: "h.e.l.lo, pa!" and then they heard pa whispering and Elmer Lonnie came in looking very solemn--or trying to--and said: "Ma, Miss Waldo wants to know if you won't please step over there a minute."

"Did she say what for? Because I'm right in the midst of getting supper. I look for your pa any minute now, and I don't want to keep him waiting."

"No 'm, she didn't say what for. She jist said: 'Ast yer ma won't she please an' step over here a minute.' I wouldn't put anythin' on. 'T ain't cold. You needn't stay long, only till... I guess she's in some of a hurry."

"Well, if Harriet Waldo thinks 'at I haven't anythin' better to do 'n trot around after her at her beck an'.... All right, I'll come."

The twins got their slippers hid, and Mrs. Rowan threw her shawl over her head, and went next door to take Mrs. Waldo completely by surprise.

The good woman immediately invented an intricate problem in crochet work demanding instant solution. Mr. Rowan had brought home a crayon enlargement of a daguerreotype of Ma, taken before she was married, when they wore their hair combed down over their ears, and wide lace collars fastened with a big cameo pin, and puffed sleeves with the armholes nearly at the elbows. They wore lace mitts then, too. The twins thought it looked so funny, but Pa said: "It was all the style in them days.

Laws! I mind the first time I took her home from singin' school....

Tell you where less hide it. In between the straw tick, and the feather tick." And Luanna May said: "What if company should come?" Elmer Lonnie ran over to Mrs. Waldo's to tell Ma that Pa had come home, and wanted his supper right quick, because he had to get back to the store, there was so much trade in the evenings now.

"I declare, Emmeline Rowan, you're gettin' to be a reg'lar gadabout,"

said Mr. Rowan, very savagely. "Gad, gad, gad, from mornin' till night.

Ain't they time in daylight fer you an' Hat Waldo to talk about your neighbors 'at you can't stay home long enough to git me my supper?"

He winked at the twins so funny that Alfaretta, who always was kind of flighty, made a little noise with her soft palate and tried to pa.s.s it off for a cough. Luanna May poked her in the ribs with her elbow, and Mrs. Rowan spoke up quite loud: "Why, Pa, how you go on! I wasn't but a minute, an' you hardly ever come before halfpast. And furthermore, mister, I want to know how I'm to keep this house a-lookin' like anything an' you a-trackin' in snow like that. Just look at you. I sh'd think you'd know enough to stomp your feet before you come in.

Luanna May, you come grind the coffee. Alfie, run git your Pa his old slippers." That set both of them to giggling, and Mrs. Rowan went out into the kitchen and began to pound the beefsteak.