“How’s that? Your Pa isn’t jealous, is he?” and the grocery man came around from behind the counter to get the latest gossip to retail to the hired girls who traded with him.
“Jealous nothin’,” said the boy> as he took a few raisins out of a box. “You see, the delegates were shuffled out to all the church members to take care of, and they dealt two to Ma, and she never told Pa anything about it. They came to supper the first night, and Pa didn’t get home, so when they went to the Convention in the evening Ma gave them a night key, and Pa came home from the boxing match about eleven o’clock, and Ma was asleep. Just as Pa got most of his clothes off he heard somebody fumbling at the front door, and he thought it was burglars. Pa has got nerve enough, when he is on the inside of the house and the burglars are on the outside. He opened a window and looked out and saw two suspicious looking characters trying to pick the lock with a skeleton key, and he picked up a new slop-jar that Ma had bought when we moved, cover and all, and dropped it down right between the two del-gates. Gosh, if it had hit one of them there would have been the solemnest funeral you ever saw. Just as it struck they got the door opened and came in the hall, and the wind was blowing pretty hard and they thought a cyclone had taken the cupola off the house. They were talking about being miraculously saved, and trying to strike a match on their wet pants, when Pa went to the head of the stairs and pushed over a wire stand filled with potted plants, which struck pretty near the delegates, and one of them said the house was coming down sure, and they better go into the cellar, and they went down and got behind the furnace. Pa called me up and wanted me to go down cellar and tell the burglars we were onto them, and for them to get out, but I wasn’t very well, so Pa locked his door and went to bed. I guess it must have been half an hour before Pa’s cold feet woke Ma up, and then Pa told her not to move for her life, cause there were two of the savagest looking burglars that ever was, rumaging over the house. Ma smelled Pa’s breath to see if he had got to drinking again, and then she got up and hid her oraide watch in her shoes, and her Onalaska diamond ear-rings in the Bible, where she said no burglar would ever find them, and Pa and Ma laid awake till daylight, and then Pa said he wasn’t afraid, and he and Ma went down cellar. Pa stood on the bottom stair and looked around, and one of the delegates said, ‘Mister, is the storm over, and is your family safe?’ and Ma recognized the voice and said, ‘Why, its one of the delegates. What are you doing down there?’ and Pa said ‘What’s a delegate?’ and then Ma explained it, and Pa apologized, and the delegate said it was no matter, as they had enjoyed themselves real well in the cellar. Ma was mortified most to death, but the delegate told her it was all right. She was mad at Pa, first, but when she saw the broken slop bowl on the front steps, and the potted plants in the hall, she wanted to kill Pa, and I guess she would only for the society of the delegates. She couldn’t help telling Pa he was a bald headed old fool but Pa didn’t retaliate—he is too much of a gentleman to talk back in company. All he said was that a woman who is old enough to have delegates sawed off on to her ought to have sense enough to tell her husband, and then they all drifted off into conversation about the convention and the boxing match, and everything was all right on the surface; but after breakfast, when the delegates went to the convention, I noticed Pa went right down town and bought a new slop-jar and some more plants. Pa and Ma didn’t speak all the forenoon, and I guess they wouldn’t up to this time only Ma’s bonnet came home from the milliner’s and she had to have some money to pay for it. Then she called Pa ‘pet,’ and that settled it. When Ma calls Pa ‘pet,’ that is twenty-five dollars. ‘Dear, old darling,’ means fifty dollars. But, say, those christian young men do a heap of good, don’t they. Their presence seems to make people better. Some boys down by the store were going to tie a can on a dog’s tail, yesterday, and somebody said ‘here comes the Christian Association,’ and those bad boys let the dog go. They tried to find the dog after the crowd had got by, but the dog knew his business. Well, I must go down and charge the soda fountain for a picnic that is expected from the country.”
“Hold on a minute,” said the grocery man as he wound a piece of brown paper around a cob and stuck it in a syrup jug he had just filled for a customer, and then licked his fingers. “I want to ask you a question. What has caused you to change so from being bad. You were about as bad as they make ‘em, up to a few weeks ago, and now you seem to have a soul, and get in your work doing good about as well as any boy in town. What is it that ails you?”
“O, sugar, I don’t want to tell,” said the boy, as he blushed and wiggled around on one foot, and looked silly; “but if you won’t laugh, I will tell you. It is my girl that has made me good. It may be only temporary. If she goes back on me I may be tuff again; but if she continues to hold out faithful I shall be a daisy all the time. Say, did you ever love a girl? It would do you good, if you loved anybody regular old fashioned the way I do, people could send little children here to trade, and you wouldn’t palm off any wilted vegetables on to them, or give them short weight—if you was in love, and felt that the one you loved saw every act of yours, and you could see her eyes every minute, you would throw away anything that was spoiled, and not try to sell it, for fear you would offend her. I don’t think any man is fit to do business honestly unless he is in love, or has been in love once. Now I couldn’t do anything wrong if I tried, because I should hear the still small voice of my girl saying to me ‘Hennery, let up on that.’ I slipped up on a banana peel, yesterday, and hurt myself, and I was just going to say something offul, and I could see my girl’s bangs raise right up, and there was a pained look in her face, and a tear in her eye, and, by gosh, I just smiled and looked tickled till her hair went down and the smile came back again to her lips, though it hurt me like blazes where I struck the sidewalk. Iwas telling Pa about it, and asked him if he ever felt as though his soul was going right out towards somebody, and he said he did once on a steamboat excursion; but he eat a lemon and got over it. Pa thinks it is my liver, and wants me to take pills, but I tell you, boss, it has struck in me too deep for pills, unless it is one that weighs about a hundred and forty pounds, and wears a hat with a feather on. Say, if my girl should walk right into a burning lake of red-hot lava, and beckon me to follow, I would take a hop, skip and jump, and—”
“O give us a rest,” said the grocery man, a he took a basin of water and sprinkled the floor preparatory to sweeping out. “You have got the worst case I ever saw, and you better go out and walk around a block,” and the boy went out, and forgot to hang out any sign.
CHAPTER XV.
HE TURNS SUPE. THE BAD BOY QUITS JERKING SODA—ENTERS THE DRAMATIC PROFESSION—“WHAT’S A SUPER”—THE PRIVILEGES OP A SUPE’S FATHER—BEHIND THE SCENES—THE BAD BOY HAS PLAYED WITH MC’CULLOUGH—“I WAS THE POPULACE”—PLAYS IT ON HIS SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER—“I PRITHEE, AU RESERVOIR, I GO HENS!”
“You look pretty sleepy,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in the store yawning, and stretched himself out on the counter with his head on a piece of brown wrapping paper, in reach of a box of raisins, “what’s the matter? Been sitting up with your girl all night?”
“Naw! I wish I had. Wakefullness with my girl is sweeter and more restful than sleep. No, this is the result of being a dutiful son, and I am tired. You see Pa and Ma have separated. That is, not for keeps, but Pa has got frightened about burglars, and he gets up into the attic to sleep. He says it is to get fresh air, but he knows better. Ma has got so accustomed to Pa’s snoring that she can’t go to sleep without it, and the first night Pa left she didn’t sleep a wink, and yesterday I was playing on an old accordeon that I traded a dog collar for after our dog was poisoned, and when I touched the low notes I noticed Ma dozed oft to sleep, it sounded so much like Pa’s snore, and last night Ma made me set up and play for her to sleep. She rested splendid, but I am all broke up, and I sold the accordeon this morning to the watchman who watches our block, It is queer what a different effect music will have on
different people. While Ma was sleeping the sleep of innocence under the influence of my counterfeit of Pa’s snore, the night watchman was broke of his rest by it, and he bought it of me to give it to the son of an enemy of his. Well, I have quit jerking soda.
“No you don’t tell me,” said the grocery man as he moved the box of raisins out of reach. “You never will amount to anything unless you stick to one trade or profession. A rolling hen never catches the early angleworm.”
“O, but I am all right now. In the soda water business, there is no chance for genius to rise unless the soda fountain explodes. It is all wind, and one gets tired of the constant fizz. He feels that he is a fraud, and when he puts a little syrup in a tumbler, and fires a little sweetened wind and water in it until the soap suds fills the tumbler, and charges ten cents for that which only costs a cent, a sensitive soda jerker, who has reformed, feels that it is worse than three card monte. I couldn’t stand the wear on my conscience, so I have got a permanent job as a super, and shall open the 1st of September.
“Say, what’s a super? It isn’t one of these free lunch places, that the mayor closes at midnight, is it?” and the grocery man looked sorry.
“O, thunder, you want salt on you. A super is an adjunct to the stage. A supe is a fellow that assists the stars and things, carrying chairs and taking up carpets, and sweeping the sand off the stage after a dancer has danced a jig, and he brings beer for the actors, and helps lace up corsets, and anything he can do to add to the effect of the play. Privately, now, I have been acting as a supe for a long time, on the sly, and my folks didn’t know anything about it, but since I reformed and decided to be good, I felt it my duty to tell Ma and Pa about it. The news broke Ma all up, at first, but Pa said some of the best actors in this country were supes once, and some of them were now, and he thought suping would be the making of me. Ma thought going on the stage would be my ruination. She said the theater was the hotbed of sin, and brought more ruin than the church could head off. But when I told her that they always gave a supe two or three extra tickets for his family, she said the theatre had some redeeming features, and when I said my entrance upon the stage would give me a splendid opportunity to get the recipe for face powder from the actresses, for Ma, and I could find out how the actresses managed to get number four feet into number one shoes, Ma said she wished I would commence suping right off. Ma says there are some things about the theater that are not so alfired bad, and she wants me to get seats for the first comic opera that comes along. Pa wants it understood with the manager that a supe’s father has a right to go behind the scenes to see that no harm befalls him, but I know what Pa wants. He may seem pious, and all that, but he likes to look at ballet girls better than any meek and lowly follower I ever see, and some day you will hear music in the air. Pa thinks theaters are very bad, when he has to pay a dollar for a reserved seat, but when he can get in for nothing as a relative of one of the ‘perfesh’, the theater has many redeeming qualities. Pa and Ma think I am going into the business fresh and green, but I know all about it. When I played with McCullough here once—
“Oh, what are you giving us,” said the grocery man in disgust, “when you played with McCullough! What did you do!”
“What did I do? Why, you old seed cucumber, the whole play centered around me. Do you remember the scene in the Roman forum, where McCullough addressed the populace of Rome? I was the populace. Don’t you remember a small feller standing in front of the Roman orator taking it in; with a night shirt on, with bare legs and arms? That was me, and everything depended on me. Suppose I had gone off the stage at the critical moment, or laughed when I should have looked fierce at the inspired words of the Roman senator, it would have been a dead give away on McCollough. As the populace of Rome I consider myself a glittering success, and Mc took me by the hand when they carried Cæsar’s dead body out, and he said, ‘us three did ourselves proud.’ Such praise from McCollough is seldom accorded to a supe. But I don’t consider the populace of the imperial city of Rome my master piece. Where I excel is in coming out before the curtain between the acts, and unhooking the carpet. Some supes go out and turn their backs to the audience, showing patches on their pants, and rip up the carpet with no style about them, and the dust flies, and the boys yell ‘supe,’ and the supe gets nervous and forgets his cue, and goes off tumbling over the carpet, and the orchestra leader is afraid the supe will fall on him. But I go out with a quiet dignity that is only gained by experience, and I take hold of the carpet the way Hamlet takes up the skull of Yorick, and the audience is paralized. I kneel down on the carpet, to unhook it, in a devotional sort of a way that makes the audience bow their heads as though they were in church, and before they realize that I am only a supe I have the carpet unhooked and march out the way a ‘Piscopal minister does when he goes out between the acts at church to change his shirt. They never ‘guy’ me, cause I act well my part. But I kick on holding dogs for actresses. Some supes think they are made if they can hold a dog, but I have an ambition that a pug dog will not fill. I held Mary Anderson’s cud of gum once, while she went on the stage, and when she came off and took her gum her fingers touched mine and I had to run my fingers in my hair to warm them, like a fellow does when he has been snow-balling. Gosh, but she would freeze ice cream without salt. I shall be glad when the theatrical season opens, ’cause we actors get tired laying off.
“Well, I’d like to go behind the scenes with you some night,” said the grocery man, offering the bad boy an orange to get solid with him, in view of future complimentary tickets. “No danger, is there?”
“No danger if you keep off the grass. But you’d a dide to see my Sunday School teacher one Saturday night last summer. He keeps books in a store, and is pretty soon week days, but he can tell you more about Daniel in the lion’s den on Sunday than anybody. He knew I was solid at the theater, and wanted me to get him behind the scenes one night, and another supe wanted to go to the sparring match, and I thought it wouldn’t be any harm to work my teacher in, so I got him a job that night to hold the dogs for the Uncle Tom’s show. He was in one of the wings holding the chains, and the dogs were just anxious to go on, and it was all my teacher could do to hold them. I told him to wind the chains around his wrists, and he did so, and just then Eliza began to skip across the ice, and we sicked the blood hounds on before my teacher could unwind the chains from his wrists, and the dogs pulled him right out on the stage, on his stomach, and drawed him across, and he jerked one dog and kicked him in the stomach, and the dog turned on my teacher and took a mouthful of his coat tail and shook it, and I guess the dog got some meat, anyway the teacher climbed up a step ladder, and the dogs treed him, and the step ladder fell down, and we grabbed the dogs and put some court plaster on the teacher’s nose, where the fire extinguisher peeled it, and he said he would go home, cause the theater was demoralizing in its tendencies.”
“I spose it was not right, but when the teacher stood up to hear our Sunday School lesson the next day, cause he was tired where the dog bit him, I said ‘sick-em,’ in a whisper, when his back was turned, and he jumped clear over to the Bible class, and put his hands around to his coat tail as though he thought the Uncle Tom’s Cabin party were giving a matinee in the church. The Sunday school lesson was about the dog’s licking the sores of Lazarus, and the teacher said we must not confound the good dogs of Bible time with the savage beasts of the present day, that would shake the daylights out of Lazarus and make him climb the cedars of Lebanon quicker than you could say Jack Robinson, and go off chewing the cud of bitter reflection on Lazarus’ coat tail. I don’t think a Sunday school teacher ought to bring up personal reminiscences before a class of children, do you? Well, some time next fall you put on a clean shirt and a pair of sheet iron pants, with stove legs on the inside, and I will take you behind the scenes to see some good moral show. In the meantime, if you have occasion to talk with Pa, tell him that Booth, and Barrett, and Keene commenced on the stage as supes, and Salvini roasted peanuts
in the lobby of some theater. I want our folks to feel that I am taking the right course to become a star. I prythee au reservoir. I go hens! but to return. Avaunt!” And the bad boy walked out on his toes a la Booth.
CHAPTER XVI.
UNCLE EZRA PAYS A VISIT—UNCLE EZRA CAUSES THE BAD BOY TO BACKSLIDE—UNCLE EZRA AND THE OLD MAN WERE BAD PILLS—THEIR RECORD IS AWFUL—KEEPING UNCLE EZRA ON THE RAGGED EDGE—THE BED SLATS FIXED—THE OLD MAN TANGLED UP—THIS WORLD IS NOT RUN RIGHT—UNCLE EZRA MAKES HIM TIRED.
“I hear your Uncle Ezra is here on a visit,” said the grocery man to the bad boy. “I suppose you have been having a high old time. There is nothing that does a boy more good than to have a nice visit with a good uncle, and hear him tell about old times when he and the boy’s father were boys together.”
“Well, I don’t know about it,” said the boy, as he took a stick of maccaroni, and began to blow paper wads through it at a wood sawyer, who was filing a saw outside the door. “When a boy who has been tough has got his pins all set to reform, I don’t think it does him any good to have a real nice Uncle come to the house visiting. Anyway, that’s my experience. I have backslid the worst way, and it is going to take me a month after Uncle Ezra goes away to climb up to the grace that I have fallen from. It is darn discouraging,” said the boy as he looked up to the ceiling in an innocent sort of a way, and hid the macarroni under his coat when the wood sawyer, who had been hit in the neck, dropped his saw and got up mad.
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