Mothering on Perilous Part 3

_Sunday Night._

I have been hunting Sunday clothes in the barrels sent us by kind friends,--the garments the children bring with them must be saved for hard, every-day wear. This morning, when I eagerly exhibited the Sunday things to the boys, I was doomed to disappointment. They expressed boundless contempt for the short trousers, flouted the knickerbockers as "meal pokes," and declined to wear the pleated and belted coats. Even the little sailor suit I had found for Jason was refused with scorn, as not being "for men." White shirts most of them accepted, but collars and ties were different,--Taulbee argued that even preachers didn't wear those, so why should he?

I was non-plussed for five minutes; then my eyes chanced to rest on Killis, the noted traveller. Sending the others from the room, I handed him a dark-blue suit, very little worn, and requested him to get into my closet and put it on, just for my pleasure. He did so, and when I had fastened a collar and a soft red tie on him, I invited him to look in my gla.s.s. He was frankly delighted. "By dogs, now, did you ever see anybody look as good as me?" he inquired.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'By dogs, now, did you ever see anybody look as good as me?'"]

"I think I never did," I replied with entire truth.

"If these breeches was just long, I'd keep these here clothes and wear 'em," he said.

"Short breeches," I a.s.sured him, "are the very latest style out in the level country; and," I added, "a boy who has seen the world and ridden on a railroad train is the very one to set new styles here,--the others would all follow what you did."

"Dad burn my looks, then, if I don't keep these and wear 'em!"

"Very well," I said, carelessly; "go along now and let me dress."

My dress was half-way over my head when the entire dozen burst into my room without knocking. Taking refuge in the closet, I let them examine the "new-styles," and fight it out over disputed garments. Later, having pinned all the collars, tied all the ties, parted all the hair, and at the last moment washed difficult cracks in all the ears, I set forth with my family for the "church-house," swelling more and more with pride at every step. Never anywhere have I seen such an aristocratic-looking set of boys.

After dinner, made wise by experience, I took them for a long walk up Perilous, to a beautiful, retired glen where they could play, fight (without weapons) and make all the noise they needed to.

On the way back, we met several women and girls on nags, and I was pained to see that my boys did not remove their hats. When I told them they must do so, Philip demanded why.

"To show the respect you feel for women," I replied.

"But I haint got none," he answered candidly; "they never done nothing for me. I'd ruther take off my hat to a cow,--I git something back from her!"

This from the namesake of the Pattern of Chivalry! Philip is very much of a man, and a prodigious worker,--in the shop he does better work than most of the grown-up boys, and is actually permitted to make walnut furniture for the big house--but he certainly lacks minor virtues, such as courtesy and cleanliness.

After supper I happened to ask Killis about his name, and told him I thought he must be named for Achilles, a hero who lived several thousand years ago, and was the greatest fighter of his time. There were unanimous demands to hear all about him, and perforce I started in telling tales of the Trojan War. This time there was no drowsiness, but, as one great combat followed another, intense interest, and howls of remonstrance when I tried to stop.

I have found acceptable literary food for my babes,--but alas, what they want is not milk at all, but blood!

_Wednesday Bed-time._

Jason, my "little pet" as the others call him, resents any allusion to the fact that he is small, and burns to play the man. In our garden work, he seizes shovels and mattocks almost as large as himself from the bigger boys, and whacks away joyously with them. To-day while we were making gravel walks, I caught him wheeling Geordie's barrow, while Geordie made feeble pa.s.ses at the gravel-bank in the creek with Jason's little broken-handled pick. Geordie explained,

"That 'ere little Jason says he's aiming to leave if you give him little-boy jobs,--he wants big ones. I told him he could take my wheel-borrow awhile,--that I were willing to trade jobs with him, to favor him."

"I don't doubt you were," I said, sharply,--I begin to fear that Geordie's energy and talent reside mostly in his tongue.

"He's able to do it all right," continued Geordie, imperturbably. "By dogs, you ought to have seed him fight out two of them little day-schools at a time yesterday! Any boy can fight like that ought to labor some, and would have to if he weren't a pet!"

This evening while Keats gave me a glowing description of Nervesty's vinegar-pies (it would appear that his affection for her has no few of its roots in his stomach) and the other boys played numble-peg outside my window, what were my grief and surprise to hear the most fearful oaths I ever listened to issue from the sensitive lips of the "pure scholar." Of course all the boys swear; but this was the worst ever.

Where can he have learned it, and his father such a perfect gentleman?

When I called him in and rebuked him, he was much downcast,--said he didn't aim to cuss, but he had been at it so long he couldn't quit. I told him the only way was to keep on trying, and how very, very happy it would make me when he should succeed; and he promised to try and _try_, "because," he added, almost in a whisper, "I like you." "And I _love_ you," I said, gathering his thin little body to my heart. How happy his words made me,--they are the first to indicate that any of the boys care for me. They have a great deal of reserve, and are hard to get acquainted with, especially Nucky. But at least they are not leaving as they did.

VI

A TRADE AND OTHER MATTERS

_Sat.u.r.day Night._

Mrs. Salyer came in Thursday bringing some large pokes of beans, a gift to the school, and a saddle-bag full of apples for her boys. Next morning while supervising bed-making, I happened to glance into the box on the wall where Keats had put the apples the night before, and, to my surprise, saw that they were all gone. "We et half of 'em off'n'on in the night, and Keats traded t'other half off to Geordie before we got up," explained Hen,--the three occupy the same bed.

On my idle inquiry as to what Geordie gave for them, Keats produced with pride a mangy little purse, about the size of a dollar, looking as if it had been well-chewed.

"Why, that wasn't a fair trade," I said, "one apple would have been all that purse was worth. I must speak to Geordie about that."

Of course in the rush later I forgot it. Moses and Zachariah having departed without farewells later in the day, I gave Geordie permission next morning to go to an uncle's over on Bald Eagle and bring back his elder brother, Absalom, to the school. Before leaving, he "gave me his hand" to be back "before the sun-ball draps this evening." The sun-ball drapped and rose and drapped again, however, before he returned; and last night as the boys were starting to bed, Philip asked me if I knew how much Geordie had made on those apples he traded Keats out of. "He sold seven to the day-schools for a cent apiece, and six to the manimal trainer for a dime, and three to Taulbee for a big gingercake he brung with him, and I give him a good taw for a couple more, and he traded the two little wormy ones that was left to Keats for a purse."

"What purse?" I inquired.

"That 'ere one Keats swapped him all the apples for at first,--the one you said weren't worth more'n one apple. Keats told him you said so, and he said he would prove it were by giving Keats two-down for it, if he wanted; and Keats was glad to make the trade."

"Do you mean to tell me," I asked, "that Geordie made seventeen cents, a gingercake, a taw _and_ the purse, out of that trade, and Keats lost everything but two wormy apples?"

Philip scratched his head thoughtfully. "By grab, he skinned the little Salyer, didn't he? Gee, I wisht I was a born trader like him, dag gone his ole soul!"

When Geordie returned to-night with Absalom, his jaw was tied up in a red bandana, he wore a look of patient suffering, and explained that he had had such a sorry time with toothache he could not return yesterday, indignantly repudiating Philip's suggestion that he had just wanted to stay and see a big time with the Yontses and drink their moonshine.

Later, when, while filling a hot-water bag for him, I regretfully spoke to him on the subject of cheating in trades, he was deeply hurt, said he had traded the apples back to Keats only to favor him, and confided in me that he aimed to be a preacher when he growed up.

_Sunday Night._

During the ear-washing this morning, I had another round with Philip, whose ears are always the grimiest, hair the most unkempt, clothes the most tattered. "Philip," I said, with a groan, "you could be the handsomest boy on the place if you only would!"

He replied contemptuously, "Handsome never earnt his salt; when a man steps in the door, looks flies up the chimley!"

In the midst of our altercation, Absalom sauntered into my room, took his stand before my mirror, and proceeded to give his hair a good dressing with my brush and comb.

Later, as I saw Geordie walking to church with a Bible under his arm, heard his heart-felt singing of the hymns, and watched his pious, soap-shining face, I wondered I could ever have thought he meant to cheat anybody.

The Trojan War made fine progress to-night,--it is only on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday nights that we can have stories, as other evenings must be spent in study. From the first, Killis has identified himself with his famous namesake, while Nucky has as inevitably taken sides with the Trojans and Hector, so much so that the boys call him "Trojan." This evening he was scathing in his denunciation of Achilles. "Gee," he said, "I wisht them Greeks had a-had a _man_ along. Now if Blant had a-been there, you'd a seed some fighting! He wouldn't have sulled around in no tent none!

He'd a-got the drap on Hector allus-ago, same as he done on Elhannon and Todd and Dalt Cheever when they laywayed him in April. He was riding along past the cliff where they was hid in the bushes, and heared the click of the lock when Elhannon c.o.c.ked his trigger, and whirled around and poured six bullets into 'em before they could fire their guns, killing Elhannon and very nigh killing t'other two."

_Wednesday._

I expected that with Iry's abilities in the way of spelling, he would be the pride and prodigy of the school; but I am pained to learn from his teacher that he can do nothing but spell. It seems that in the five-month district school he has attended three terms over on Rakeshin, nothing was taught but reading and spelling,--two lessons a day in the former, two in the latter,--thus does our n.o.ble commonwealth do her duty when she does it at all! Iry has had to go back into the first grade to learn the rudiments of arithmetic, geography, grammar, etc.

Last night Taulbee, the eldest, who is very opinionated, took occasion to enter a general protest against innovations such as nightgowns, tooth-brushes, fine-combs and the like, and wound up by arraigning the school methods of cooking. "Them little small biscuits you-all have don't make half of a good bite," he declared: "You women," he continued, severely, "think you know so much, and lay down so many laws, and, by Ned, you don't even know how to bile beans!"

"How should beans be cooked?" I inquired.