“To-morrow night,” said the boy, as he put more labels on the hat box, and stood off and looked at them with the eye of an artist. “We go to New York first to stay a few days and see things, and then we take a steamer and sail away, and the sicker dad is the more time I will have to fill up on useful nollig.”
“Hennery,” said the old groceryman, as his chin trembled, and a tear came to his eye. “I want to ask you a favor. At times, when you have been unusually mean, I have thought I hated you, but when I have said something ugly to you, and have laid awake all night regretting it, it has occurred to me that you were about the best friend I had. I think it makes an old man forget his years, to be chummy with a live boy, full of ginger, and I do like you, condemn you, and I can’t help it. Now I want you to write me every little while, on your trip, and I will read your letters to the customers here in the store, who will be lonely until they can hear that you are dead. The neighbors will come in to read your letters, and it will bring me custom. Will you write to me, boy, and pour out your heart to me, and tell me of the different troubles you get your dad into, for surely you cannot help finding trouble over there if you go hunting for it. Promise me, boy.”
“You bet your life I will, old pard,” said the bad boy. “I shall have to have some escape valve to keep from busting. I was going to write to my chum, but he is in love with a telephone girl, and he don’t take any time for pleasure. I will write you about every dutch and duchess we meet, every prince and pauper, and everything. You watch my smoke, and you will think there is a train afire. I hope dad will try and restrain himself from wanting to fight everybody that belongs to any country but America. He has bought one one these little silk American flags to wear in his button hole, and he swears if anybody looks cross-eyed at that flag he will simply cut his liver out, and toast it on a fork, and eat it. He makes me tired, and I know there is going to be trouble.”
“Don’t you think your dad’s mind sort of wanders?” said the old groceryman, in a whisper, “It wouldn’t be strange, after all he has gone through, in raising you up to your present size, if he was a little off his base.”
“Well, ma thinks he is bug-house, and the hired girl is willing to go into court and swear to it, and that experience we had coming home from the Yellowstone park some time ago, made me think if he was not crazy he would be before long, You see, we had a hot box on the engine, and had to stay at a station in the bad lands for an hour, and there were a mess of cow boys on the platform, and I told dad we might as well have some amusement while we were there, and that a brake-man told me the cow boys were great dancers, but you couldn’t hire them to dance, but if some man with a strong personality would demand that they dance, and put his hand on his pistol pocket they would all jump in and dance for an hour. That was enough for dad, for he has a microbe that he is a man of strong personality, and that when he demands that anybody do something they simply got to do it, so he walked up and down the platform a couple of times to get his draw poker face on, and I went up to one of the cow boys and told him that the old duffer used to be a ballet dancer, and he thought everybody ought to dance when they were told to, and that if the spell should come on him, and he should order them to dance, it would be a great favor to me if they would just give him a double shuffle or two, just to ease his mind.
“Well, pretty soon he came along to where the cowboys were leaning against the railing, and, looking at them in a haughty manner, he said: ‘Dance, you kiotes, dance,’ and he put his hand to his pistol pocket. Well, sir, I never saw so much fun in my life. Four of the cow boys pulled revolvers and began to shoot regular bullets into the platform within an inch of dad’s feet, and they yelled to him: ‘Dance your own self, you ancient maverick; whoop ’er up!’ and by gosh! dad was so frightened that he began to dance all around the platform, and it was like a battle, the bullets splintering the boards, and the smoke filling the air, and the passengers looking out of the windows and laughing, and the engineer and fireman looking on and yelling, and dad nearly exhausted from the exertion. I guess if the conductor had not got the hot box put out and yelled all aboard, dad would have had apoplexy.”
“When he let up, the cow boys quit shooting, and he!’ol aboard the train and started. I stayed in the smoking car with the train butcher for more than an hour, ’cause I was afraid if I went in the car where dad was he would make some remark that would offend my pride, and when I did go back to the car he just said: ‘Somebody fooled you. Those fellows couldn’t dance, and I knew it all the time.’ Yes, I guess there is no doubt dad is crazy sometimes, but let me chaperone him through a few foreign countries and he will stand without hitching all right. Well, goodby, now, old man, and try and bear up under it, till you get a letter from me,” and the bad boy took his labeled valise and hat box and started.
CHAPTER III.
The Bad Boy Writes About the Fun They Had Going to Washington—He and His Dad Call on President Roosevelt— The Bad Boy Meets One of the Children and They Disagree.
Washington, D. C—
My Dear Old Skate: I didn’t tell you in my last about the fun we had getting here. We were on the ocean wave two days, because the whole country was flooded from the rains, and dad walked the quarter deck of the Pullman car, and hitched up his pants, and looked across the sea on each side of the train with a field glass, looking for whales and porpoises. He seems to be impressed with the idea that this trip abroad is one of great significance to the country, and that he is to be a sort of minister plenipotentiary, whatever that is, and that our country is going to be judged by the rest of the world by the position he takes on world affairs. The first day out of Chicago dad corraled the porter in a section and talked to him until the porter was black in the face. I told dad the only way to get respectful consideration from a negro was to advocate lynching and burning at the stake, for the slightest things, so when our porter was unusually attentive to a young woman on the car dad hauled him over the coals, and scared him so by talking of hanging, and burning in kerosene oil, that the negro got whiter than your shirt, and when he got away from dad he came to me and asked if that old man with the red nose and the gold-headed cane was as dangerous as he talked. I told him he was my dad, and that he was a walking delegate of the Amalgamated Association of Negro Lynchers, and when a negro did anything that he ought to be punished for they sent for dad, and he took charge of the proceedings and saw that the negro was hanged, and shot, and burned up plenty. But I told him that dad was crazy on the subject of giving tips to servants, and he must not fall dead when we got to Washington if dad gave him a $50 bill, and he must not give back any change, but just act as though he always got $50 from passengers. Well, you’d a dide to see that negro brush dad 50 times a day, and bring a towel every few minutes to wipe off his shoes, but he kept one eye,’ about as big as an onion, on dad all the time, to watch that he didn’t get stabbed. The next morning I took dad’s pants from under his pillow, and hid them in a linen closet, and dad laid in his berth all the forenoon, and had it out with the porter, whom he accused of stealing them. The doctors told me I must keep dad interested and excited, so he would not dwell on his sickness, and I did, sure as you are a foot high. Dad stood it till almost noon, when he came out of his berth with his pajamas on, these kind with great blue stripes like a fellow in the penitentiary, and when he went to the wash room I found his pants and then he dressed up and swore some at everybody but me. We got to Washington all right, and I thought I would bust when dad fished out a nickel and gave it to the porter, and we got out of the car before the porter came to, and the first day we stayed in the hotel for fear the negro would see us, as I told dad that porter would round up a gang of negroes with razors and they would waylay us and cut dad all up into sausage meat.
Dad is the bravest man I ever saw when there is no danger, but when there is a chance for a row he is weak as a cat. I spect it is on account of his heart being weak. A man’s internal organs are a great study. I spose a brave man, a hero, has to ha
ve all his inside things working together, to be real up and up brave, but if his heart is strong, and his liver is white, he goes to pieces in an emergency, and if his liver is all right, and he tries to fight just on his liver, when the supreme moment arrives, and his heart jumps up into his throat, and wabbles and beats too quick, he just flunks. I would like to dissect a real brave man, and see what condition the things inside him are in, but it would be a waste of time to dissect dad, ’cause I know all his inner works need to go to a watchmaker and be cleaned, and a new main spring put in.
Well, this morning dad shaved himself, and got on his frock coat, and his silk hat, and said we would go over to the white house and have a talk with Teddy, but first he wanted to go and see where Jefferson hitched his horse to the fence when he came to Washington to be innogerated, and where Jackson smoked his corn cob pipe, and swore and stormed around when he was mad, and to walk on the same paths where Zachariah Taylor Zacked, Buchanan catched it, and Lincoln put down the rebellion, and so we walked over toward the white house, and I was scandalized. I stopped to pick up a stone to throw at a dog inside the fence, and when I walked along behind dad, and got a rear view of his silk hat, it seemed as though I would sink through the asphalt pavement, for he had on an old silk hat that he wore before the war, the darnedest looking hat I ever saw, the brim curled like a minstrel show hat, the fur rubbed off in some places, and he looked like one of these actors that you see pictures of walking on the railroad track, when the show busts up at the last town. I think a man ought to dress so his young son won’t have a fit. I tried to get dad to go and buy a new hat, but he said he was going to wait till he got to London, and buy one just like King Edward wears, but he will never get to London with that hat, ’cause to-night I will throw it out of the hotel window and put a piece of stove pipe in his hat box.
Well, sir, you wouldn’t believe it, but we got into the white house without being pulled, but it was a close shave, ’cause everybody looked at dad, and put their forefingers to their foreheads, for they thought he was either a crank, or an ambassador from some furrin country. The detectives got around dad when we got into the anteroom, and began to feel of his pockets to see if he had a gun, and one of them asked me what the old fellow wanted, and I told them he was the greatest bob cat shooter in the west, and was on his way to Europe to invite the emperors and things to come over to this country and shoot cats on his preserve. Well, say, you ought to have seen how they stepped one side and waltzed around, and one of them went in the next room and told the president dad was there, and before we knew it we were in the president’s room, and the president began to curl up his lip, and show his teeth like some one had said “rats.”
He got hold of dad’s hand, and dad backed off as though he was afraid of being bitten, and then they sat down and talked about mountain lion and cat shooting, and dad said he had a 22 rifle that he could pick a cat off the back fence with every time, out of his bedroom window, and I began to look around at the pictures. Dad and the president talked about all kinds of shooting, from mudhens to moose, and then dad told the president he was going abroad on account of his liver, and wanted a letter of introduction to some of the kings and emperors, and queens, and jacks, and all the face cards, and the president said he made it a practice not to give any personal letters to his friends, the kings, but that dad could tell any of them that he met that he was an American citizen, and that would take him anywhere in Europe, and then he got up and began to show his teeth at dad again, and dad gave him the grand hailing sign of distress of the Grand Army and backed out, dropped his hat, and in trying to pick it up, he stepped on it, but that made it look better, anyway, and we found ourselves outside the room, and a lot of common people from the country were ready to go in and talk politics and cat shooting.
Well, we looked at pictures, and saw the state dining room where they feed 50 diplomats at a time on mud turtle and champagne, and a boy about my size looked sort of disdainful at me, and I told him it he would come outside I would mash his jaw, and he said I could try it right there if I was in a hurry to go, and I was starting to give him a swift punch when a detective took hold of my arm and said they couldn’t have any scrap there, ’cause the president’s son could not fight with common boys, and I asked him who he called a common boy, and then dad said we better go before war broke out in a country that was illy prepared for hostilities on a large scale, and then I told a detective that dad was liable to have one of his spells and begin shooting any minute, and then the detectives all thought dad was one of these president assassinationists, and they took him into a room and searched him, and asked him a whole lot of fool questions, and they finally let us out, and told us we better skip the town before night.
Dad got kind of heavy-hearted over that and took a notion he would like to see ma again before crossing the briny deep, so you came near having your little angel again soon. This weakness of dad’s didn’t last long, for we’re looking for a warm time in New York and old Lunnon.
So long,
Hennery.
CHAPTER IV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Visit Mount Vernon—Dad Weeps at the Grave of the Father of Our Country.
New York City.—
My Dear Uncle Ezra: I got a letter from my chum this morning, and he says he was in the grocery the day he wrote, and you were a sight. He says that if I am going to be away several months you will never change your shirt till I get back, for nobody around the grocery seems to have any influence over you. I meant to have put you under bonds before I left, to change your shirt at least quarterly, but you ought to change it by rights every month. The way to do is to get an almanac and make a mark on the figures at the first of the month, and when you are studying the almanac it will remind you of your duty to society. People east here, that is, business men in your class, change their shirts every week or two. Try and look out for these little matters, insignificant as they may seem, because the public has some rights that it is dangerous for a man to ignore.
Dad and I have been down to Mount Vernon, and had a mighty solemn time. I think dad expected that we would be met at the trolley car by a delegation of descendants of George Washington, by a four-horse carriage, with postilions and things, and driven to the old house, and received with some distinction, as dad had always been an admirer of George Washington, and had pointed with pride to his record as a statesman and a soldier, but all we saw was a bunch of negroes, who told us which way to walk, and charged us ten cents apiece for the information.
At Mount Vernon we found the old house where George lived and died, where Martha told him to wipe his feet before he came in the house, and saw that things were cooked properly. We saw pictures of revolutionary scenes and men of that period, relics of the days when George was the whole thing around there. We saw the bed on which George died, and then we went down to the icehouse and looked through the fence and saw the marble coffins in which George and Martha were sealed up. Say, old man, I know you haven’t got much reverence, but you couldn’t look through that fence at what remains of the father of his country without taking off your hat and thinking good things while you were there.
I was surprised at dad; he cried, though he never met George Washington in all his life. I have seen dad at funerals at home, when he was a bearer, or a mourner, and he never acted as thought it affected him much, but there at Mount Vernon, standing within eight feet of the remains of George Washington, he just lost his nerve, and bellered, and I felt solemn myself, like I had been kept in after school when all the boys were going in swimming. If a negro had not asked dad for a quarter I know dad would have got down on his knees and been pious, but when he gave that negro a swift kick for butting in with a commercial proposition, in a sacred moment, dad come to, and we went up to the house again. Dad said what he wanted was to think of George Washington just as a country farmer, instead of a general and a president. He said we got nearer to George, if we thought of him getting up in the morning, putting on his old farmer pants
and shirt, and going downstairs in his stocking feet, and going out to the kitchen by the wooden bench, dipping a gourd full of rain water out of a barrel into an earthen wash basin and taking some soft soap out of a dish and washing himself, his shirt open so his great hairy breast would catch the breeze, his suspenders, made of striped bed ticking, hanging down, his hair touseled up until he had taken out a yellow pocket comb and combed it, and then yelling to Martha to know about how long a workingman would have to wait for breakfast. And then dad said he liked to think of George Washington sitting down at the breakfast table and spearing sausages out of a platter, and when a servant brought in a mess of these old-fashioned buckwheat cakes, as big as a pieplate, see George, in imagination, pilot a big one on to his plate, and cover it with sausage gravy, and eat like he didn’t have any dyspepsia, and see him help Martha to buckwheat cakes, and finally get up from breakfast like a full Christian and go out on the farm and count up the happy slaves to see if any of them had got away during the night.
By ginger, dad inspired me with new thoughts about the father of his country. I had always thought of Washington as though he was constantly crossing the Delaware in a skiff, through floating ice, with a cocked hat on, and his coat flaps trimmed with buff nankeen stuff, a sort of a male Eliza in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” getting away from the hounds that were chasing her to chew her pants. I was always thinking of George either chopping cherry trees, or standing on a pedestal to have his picture taken, but here at the old farm, with dad to inspire me, I was just mingling with Washington, the planter, the neighbor, telling the negroes where they would get off at if they didn’t pick cotton fast enough, or breaking colts, or going to the churn and drinking a quart of buttermilk, and getting the stomach ache, and calling upstairs to Martha, who was at the spinning wheel, or knitting woolen socks, and asking her to fix up a brandy smash to cure his griping pains. I thought of the father of his country taking a severe cold, and not being able to run into a drug store for a bottle of cough sirup, or a quinine pill, having Martha fix a tub of hot mustard water to soak those great feet of his, and bundle him up in a flannel blanket, give him a hot whisky, and put him to bed with a hot brick at his feet.
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