“By the way, that presidential boom for Uncle Ike is off. Don’t let the gang do another thing. He is a lobster,” and the boys went out into the world looking for another candidate, followed by a dog that jumped up and down in front of them as though he could lead them to a presidential candidate or a wood-chuck hole mighty quick.
“Speaking of dogs,” said Uncle Ike, as he and the boy sat down to breakfast, and the other boys went out on the street to wait for the red-headed boy to finish eating, “where you boys going?”
“Just going to follow the dog,” said the warm-haired proposition, as he kicked because the melon was not ripe. “Did you ever drown out a gopher, Uncle Ike?”
“Bet your life,” said Uncle Ike, as he dished out enough food for the boy to have fed an orphan asylum. “Oh, I had a dog once that knew more than an alderman. Do you know, boy, that a dog is the best thing a boy can associate with? A boy never does anything very mean, if he has a dog that loves him. Many a time I have been just about ready to do a mean trick, when the dog would sit down in front of me, and look up into my eyes in an appealing way, and raise up one ear at a time and drop it, and raise the other, and he would jump up on me and lick my hand, and seem to say, ‘Don’t,’ and, by gosh! I didn’t. Say, if a mean boy has a dog that loves him, the dog is better than he is, and the boy is careful about doing mean things, for fear he will shame the dog. I don’t suppose a dog will get to heaven, but, if his master goes to heaven, the dog is mighty likely to lay down on the outside of the pearly gates, and just starve to death, waiting to hear the familiar whistle of his master, who is enjoying himself inside. Now, let’s go out on the porch while I smoke;” and the old man led the way, and lighted up the old churn, and puffed away a while, and the boy was in a hurry to get away with the other boys; and finally the boys came up on the porch, and the dog went up to Uncle Ike and licked his hand, as though he knew the old man was a friend of dogs and boys. “What’s this scar on his nose? Woodchuck bite him?”
“Yes, sir,” said one of the boys. “And this one on the under lip?” said the old man. “Looks like a gopher had took a bite out of that lip.”
“That’s what it was,” said another boy, and they all laughed to think that a dignified old man like Uncle Ike could tell all about the scars on a cheap dog. “Well, boys, I won’t detain you if you are going out to exercise the dog on woodchucks or gophers. But let me tell you this,” and he puffed quite a little while on the pipe, and seemed to be harking away back to the bark of the dog friend of his boyhood, and the boys could almost see the dirt flying out of an old-time woodchuck hole as the dog of Uncle Ike’s memory was digging and biting at roots, and snarling at a woodchuck that was safe enough away down below the ground. “Let me tell you something. You want to play fair with the dog. A dog has got more sense than some men. He can tell a loafer, after one wood-chuck hunt. The boy who gets interested when the clog is digging out a woodchuck, gets down on his knees and pushes the dirt away, and pats the dog, and encourages him, and when he comes to a root, takes his knife and cuts it away, is the thoroughbred that the dog will tie to; but the boy who sits in the shade and sicks the dog on, and don’t help, but bets they don’t get the woodchuck, and when the dog and his working partner pulls the woodchuck out, gets up out of the shade and begins to talk about how we got the woodchuck, is the loafer. He is the kind of fellow who will encourage others to enlist and go to war, in later life, while he stays home and kicks about the way the war is conducted, and shaves mortgages on the homes of soldiers, and forecloses them. That kind of a boy will be the one who will lie in the shade when he grows up, and not work in the sun. Didn’t you ever see a dog half-way down a woodchuck hole, kicking dirt into the bosom of the boy’s pants who is backing him, suddenly back out of the hole, wag his tail and wink his eyes, full of dirt, at the boy who is working the hole with him, and then run out his tongue and loll, and look at the fellows who are sitting around waiting for the last act, in the shade, and say to them, as plain as a dog can talk, ‘You fellows make me tired. Why don’t you get some style about you, and come in on this game on the ground floor?’ and then he gets rested a little, and you say, ‘dig him out,’ and he swallows a big sigh at their laziness, and goes down in the hole and digs and growls so the lazy boys think he has forgotten that they are deadheads in the enterprise, but the dog does not forget.”
“Well, I swow, if your Uncle Ike ain’t away up in G on woodchuck hunting,” said one of the neighbor boys as they all sat around the old man, with their eyes wide open. “How about drowning out a gopher?”
“Same thing, exactly,” said Uncle Ike, as he filled up the pipe again, and lit it, and run a broom straw through the stem, to give it air. “The dog watches the hole, and keeps tab on the boys who carry water. You have got to keep the water going down the gopher hole, and you got to work like sixty. Gophers know better than to have holes too near the water, and the dog knows what boy flunks after he carries one pail of water, and says, ‘Oh, darn a gopher anyway; I hain’t lost no gopher,’ and goes and sits down and lets the other boys carry water. The dog knows that the boy who keeps carrying water and pouring it in the hole is the thoroughbred, and that the quitter has got a streak of yellow in him. When the hole is filled up with water, and the gopher comes to the surface, and the dog grabs for it, and the boy who took off his clothes and carried water also grabs, and either the dog or the boy gets bit, usually the boy, the dog knows that the boy who worked with him on that gopher hole has got the making of a good business man in him. A business or professional career, boys, is just like digging out a woodchuck, or drowning out a gopher, and the fellows who help the dog when they are boys, are the ones who are mighty apt to get the business woodchuck when they grow up. I will bet you ten dollars that if you pick out the most successful business man in town, and go look at his left thumb nail, you will find a scar on it where a half-drowned gopher bit him, because he was at the hole at the right time. Now, go and have fun, and be sure and play fair with the dog,” and Uncle Ike took down a broom and shook it at them as they scattered down the street, the dog barking joyously.
“I speak for carrying the water to drown out the gopher!” yelled the red-headed boy.
“Me, too!” shouted the other boys in chorus, as they disappeared from sight, and Uncle Ike listened until they were out of hearing, and then he limped down to the gate and looked up the road toward the country, but all he could see was a cloud of dust with a dog in it, and he walked back to the house sadly, and as he lifted the lame leg upon the porch, and took his hat, he said:
“Blamed if I don’t hitch up the mare and drive out there where those boys have gone. I’ll bet I know woodchuck holes and gopher holes them kids never would find if they had a whole passel of dogs,” and he went out to the barn and pretty soon Aunt Almira heard him yell, “Whoa, gosh darn ye, take in that bit!” and she put on her sunbonnet and went out to the barn to see if he had actually gone crazy.
CHAPTER XIII
“What you scratching yourself on the chest for?” said Uncle Ike, as the red-headed boy stood with one hand inside his vest, digging as though his life depended on his doing a good job. “Is there anything the matter with you that soap and water will not cure?” and the old man punched the boy in the ribs with a great big, hard thumb, as big as a banana.
“Uncle Ike, how long will a porous plaster stay on, and isn’t there any way to stop its itching? I have had one on for seventeen days and nights, and it seems to be getting worse all the time,” said the boy, as he dug away at his chest.
“Good heavens, take it off quick!” said Uncle Ike, as he laid his lighted pipe down on the table, on a nice, clean cloth, and the ashes and fire spilled out, and burned a hole in it. “You will die of mortification. Those plasters are only intended to be used as posters for a day or two. What in the name of common sense have you worn it seventeen days for? Let’s rip it off.”
“No, I have got to wear it eighteen days more,” said the boy, with a loo
k of resignation. “Now, don’t laugh, Uncle Ike, will you? You see my girl has gone to the seashore to be gone five weeks, and she gave me a tintype and told me to wear it next my heart till she got back, and I thought I could get it nearer my heart by putting it right against the skin, and putting a porous plaster over it, and by gum, I can feel her on my heart every minute. Now don’t laugh, Uncle.”
“Well, I guess not,” said Uncle Ike, as he put out the fire on the table-cloth, and smoked a little while to settle his thoughts. “Here, this plaster has got to be removed before the fatal day of her return, or you will be holding down a job as a red-headed angel. Now, open your shirt,” and the old man reached in and got a corner of the plaster, and gave a jerk that caused every hair on the boy’s head to raise up and crack like a whiplash, while the tintype of the girl, covered with crude India rubber and medicated glue, dropped on the floor, and the boy turned pale and yelled bloody murder. “Now, don’t ever do that again. A picture in your inside pocket is near enough to the heart for all practical purposes. Next, you will be swallowing her picture in the hope that it will lodge near your heart. Now I got something serious to talk with you about. One of the park policemen was here this morning looking for you. He said some of you boys just raised merry hades at the park concert last night. What did you do?”
“Just flushed quails,” said the boy, as he buttoned his shirt, and gave the sore spot a parting dig. “We played we were hunting quail, and we had more fun than you ever saw.”
“There are no quail in the park,” said Uncle Ike, as he looked curiously at the boy through the smoke.
“Here, this plaster has got to be removed before the fatal day of her return,” and puffed until his cheeks sank in, and the tears came to his eyes. “What is this quail fable, anyway?”
“You see,” said the boy, as he took a piece of ice out of the water pitcher and held it in his bosom, where the plaster came off, “when there is an evening concert at the park, the boys and girls go off in couples and sit under the trees in the dark, or on the grass, where no one can see them very well, and they take hold of hands and put their arms around each other, and all the time they are scared for fear they will be caught, and ordered to quit. Well, us boys go around in the dark, and when we see a couple in that way, one boy comes to a point, like a dog, another boy walks up to the couple and flushes them, and as they get up quick to go somewhere else, I blow up a paper bag and bust it, and they start off on a run. Say, Uncle Ike, it is fun. We chased one couple clear to the lake.”
“You did, did you, you little imp?” said the old man, as his sympathies were aroused for the young people who were disturbed at a critical time. “Don’t let me ever hear of your flushing any more couples, or I’ll flush you the first time I catch you with your girl. How would you like to be flushed? The parks are the only places many young people have to talk love to each other, and it is cruel to disturb them by bursting paper bags in their vicinity. If I was mayor I would build a thousand little summer houses in the parks, just big enough for a poor young couple to sit in, and talk over the future, and I would set policemen to watch out that nobody disturbed them, and if one of you ducks come along, I would have you thrown in the lake. The idea of a boy who is in love the way you pretend to be, having no charity for others, makes me sick, I’ll bet none of those you flushed last night had it so bad they had tintypes of the girls glued on their hearts with a porous plaster. Bah! you meddler!” and the old man stamped his foot on the floor, and the boy looked ashamed.
“Well, that’s the last time I will mix in another fellow’s love affair,” said the boy, as he climbed up on Uncle Ike’s knee.
“Now, I want to talk to you seriously,” said the boy, as he looked up into Uncle Ike’s round, smooth, red and smiling face. “Us boys have been reading about the serious condition of our country, when its wealthy citizens are leaving it and going abroad to live. Do you think, uncle, that William Waldorf Astor’s deserting this country, and joining England, is going to cause this country to fail up in business? In case of war with England, do you think he would fight this country?”
“Well, you kids can borrow more trouble about this poor old country of ours than the men who own it can borrow. Astor! Why, boy, his deserting his country will have about as much effect as it would for that man working in the street to pack up his household goods and move to Indiana. Do you suppose this state would tip up sideways if he should quit running that scraper and move out of the state? Not much. The Astors have been rich so long that they are un-American. It is not the natural condition of an American to be rich. When a man gets too rich, he is worried as to what to do with his money. There is no great enjoyment that the very rich can have in this country that the poor cannot have a little of. The first thing a very rich man acquires is a bad stomach. He becomes too lazy to’ take exercise, and lets a hired man take exercise for him. He looks at his money, and thinks of his stomach. In Astor’s case there was nothing in this country that he could enjoy, not even sleep. Nobody respected him any more than they did every other honest man. Only a few toadies would act toward him as though he was a world’s wonder, on account of his wealth. People with souls, and health, and good nature, in the West, got rich as he, and went to New York, and knew how to spend money and have fun, and do good with it; and Astor couldn’t understand it. He wanted to be considered the only, but he never had learned how to blow in money to make others happy. If he gave to the poor, an agent did it for him, and squeezed it, and made a memorandum and showed it to him once a year, and he frowned, and his stomach ached, and he took a pill, and sighed. I suppose two girls from California, daughters of an old Roman of the mines and the railroads, who died too soon, a senator with a soul, taught Astor how to do good with money, and maybe scared him out of the country. Those girls seemed to, know where there was a chance for suffering among the poor, and they kept people in their employ on the run to get to places before the bread was all gone, until half a million of the people that only knew there was an Astor by the signs on buildings for rent, knew these Fair girls by sight, and worshiped them as they passed. The girls are married now, but they give just the same, and wherever they are in the world there is the crowd, and there is the love of those who believe them angels. Astor could not find any one to love him for any good he ever did that did not have rent or interest as the object, and he went away where a man is respected in a half-way manner, in proportion to the money he spends on royalty, in imitating royalty, and he will run a race there, and get tired of it; and some day, if he lives, he will come back to this country in the steerage, as his ancestors did, and take out his first papers and vote, and maybe he will be happy. The only way for a rich man to be very happy is to find avenues for getting his congested wealth off his mind, where it will cause some one who is poor and suffering to look up to him, and say that riches have not spoiled him. But to inherit money and go through life letting it accumulate, and not finding any avenue where it can leak out and be caught in the apron of a needy soul, is tough. No, you boys need not worry about the desertion of Astor. If we have a war with Great Britain, you would find Astor taking a night trip across the channel, and France would draw him in the lottery. One foreigner who landed in this country the day Astor sailed away, will be of more value in peace or war than Astor could be if he had remained.”
“Gosh!” said the boy, as he got up out of Uncle Ike’s lap, “if you are not a comfort! Between that porous plaster, and Astor’s going to England, and my girl at the seashore, I was about down with nervous prostration, but I am all right now,” and the redheaded boy went out to round up the gang and tell them the country was all safe enough, as long as they had Uncle Ike to run it.
CHAPTER XIV
“Well, you are a sight!” said Uncle Ike, as the red-headed boy came in the room, all out of breath, his shirt unbuttoned and his hair wet and dripping, and his face so clean that it was noticeable. “Why don’t you make your toilet before you come into a gentleman’s room? Where
you been, anyway?”
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