Short Stories for English Courses Part 7

Wife, she was cryin' by this time, an' parson, he claired his th'oat an' coughed, an' then he commenced walkin' up an' down, an'

dreckly he stopped, an' says he, speakin' mighty reverential an'

serious:

"Lookin' at this case speritually, an' as a minister o' the Gospel," says he, "it seems to me thet the question ain't so much a question of DOIN' ez it is a question of WITHHOLDIN'. I don't know," says he, "ez I've got a right to withhold the sacrament of baptism from a child under these circ.u.mstances or to deny sech comfort to his parents ez lies in my power to bestow."

An', sir, with that he stepped out to the end o' the po'ch, opened his book ag'in, an' holdin' up his right hand to'ards Sonny, settin' on top o' the bean-arbor in the rain, he commenced to read the service o' baptism an' we stood proxies--which is a sort o' a dummy subst.i.tutes--for whatever G.o.dfather an' mother Sonny see fit to choose in after life.

Parson, he looked half like ez ef he'd laugh once-t. When he had thess opened his book and started to speak, a sudden streak o'

sunshine shot out an' the rain started to ease up, an' it looked for a minute ez ef he was goin' to lose the baptismal waters. But d'rec'ly it come down stiddy ag'in an' he went thoo the programme entire.

An' Sonny, he behaved mighty purty; set up perfec'ly ca'm an'

composed thoo it all, an' took everything in good part, though he didn't p'intedly know who was bein' baptized, 'cause, of co'se, he couldn't hear the words with the rain in his ears.

He didn't rightly sense the situation tell it come to the part where it says: "Name this child," and, of co'se, I called out to Sonny to name hisself, which it had always been our intention to let him do.

"Name yo'self, right quick, like a good boy," says I.

Of co'se Sonny had all his life heered me say thet I was Deuteronomy Jones, Senior, an' thet--I hoped some day when he got christened he'd be the junior. He knowed that by heart, an' would agree to it or dispute it, 'cordin' to how the notion took him, and I sort o' ca'culated thet he'd out with it now. But no, sir!

Not a word! He thess sot up on thet bean-arbor an' grinned.

An' so, feelin' put to it, with the services suspended over my head, I spoke up, an' I says: "Parson," says I. "I reckon ef he was to speak his little heart, he'd say Deuteronomy Jones, Junior." An' with thet what does Sonny do but conterdic' me flat!

"No, not Junior! I want to be named Deuteronomy Jones, Senior!"

says he, thess so. An' parson, he looked to'ards me, an' I bowed my head an' he p.r.o.nounced thess one single name, "Deuteronomy,"

an' I see he wasn't goin' to say no more an' so I spoke up quick, an' says I: "Parson," says I, "he has spoke his heart's desire. He has named hisself after me entire--Deuteronomy Jones, Senior."

An' so he was obligated to say it, an' so it is writ in the family record colume in the big Bible, though I spelt his Senior with a little s, an' writ him down ez the only son of the Senior with the big S, which it seems to me fixes it about right for the time bein'.

Well, when the rector had got thoo an' he had wropped up his robes an' put 'em in his wallet, an' had told us to prepare for conformation, he pernounced a blessin' upon us an' went.

Then Sonny seein' it was all over, why, HE COME DOWN. He was wet ez a drownded rat, but wife rubbed him off an' give him some hot tea an' he come a-snuggin' up in my lap, thess ez sweet a child ez you ever see in yo' life, an' I talked to him ez fatherly ez I could, told him we was all 'Piscopals now, an' soon ez his little foot got well I was goin' to take him out to Sunday-school to tote a banner--all his little 'Piscopal friends totes banners--an' thet he could pick out some purty candles for the altar, an' he 'lowed immejate thet he'd buy pink ones. Sonny always was death on pink-- showed it from the time he could s.n.a.t.c.h a pink rose--an' wife she ain't never dressed him in nothin' else. Ever' pair o' little breeches he's got is either pink or pink-trimmed.

Well, I talked along to him till I worked 'round to shamin' him a little for havin' to be christened settin' up on top a bean-arbor, same ez a crow-bird, which I told him the parson he wouldn't 'a'

done ef he'd 'a' felt free to've left it undone. 'Twasn't to indulge him he done it, but to bless him an' to comfort our hearts. Well, after I had reasoned with him severe that-a-way a while, he says, says he, thess ez sweet an' mild, says he, "Daddy, nex' time y'all gits christened, I'll come down an' be christened right--like a good boy."

Th' ain't a sweeter child in'ardly 'n what Sonny is, nowheres, git him to feel right comf'table, and I know it, an' that's why I have patience with his little out'ard ways.

"Yes, sir," says he; "nex' time I'll be christened like a good boy."

Then, of co'se, I explained to him thet it couldn't never be did no mo', 'cause it had been did, an' did 'Piscopal, which is secure. An' then what you reckon the little feller said?

Says he, "Yes, daddy, but S'POS'IN' MINE DON'T TAKE. How 'bout that?"

An' I didn't try to explain no further. What was the use? Wife, she had drawed a stool close-t up to my knee, an' set there sortin' out the little yaller rings ez they'd dry out on his head, an' when he said that I thess looked at her an' we both looked at him, an' says I, "Wife," says I, "ef they's anything in heavenly looks an' behavior, I b'lieve that christenin' is started to take on him a'ready."

An' I b'lieve it had.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN

BY JOHN FOX, JR.

"All that is literature seeks to communicate power." [Footnote: De Quincey, "Letters to a Young Man."] Here the power communicated is that of sympathizing with G.o.d's "lesser children." The humanitarian story is a long step in advance of the fable. It recognizes the true relations of the animal world to man, and insists that it be dealt with righteously and sympathetically.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN

[Footnote: From "Christmas Eve on Lonesome," by John Fox, Jr.

Copyright, 1904, by Charles Scribner's Sons.]

No night was this in Hades with solemn-eyed Dante, for Satan was only a woolly little black dog, and surely no dog was ever more absurdly misnamed. When Uncle Carey first heard that name, he asked gravely:

"Why, Dinnie, where in h---," Uncle Carey gulped slightly, "did you get him?" And Dinnie laughed merrily, for she saw the fun of the question, and shook her black curls. "He didn't come f'um THAT PLACE."

Distinctly Satan had not come from that place. On the contrary, he might by a miracle have dropped straight from some Happy Hunting- Ground, for all the signs he gave of having touched pitch in this or another sphere. Nothing human was ever born that was gentler, merrier, more trusting or more lovable than Satan. That was why Uncle Carey said again gravely that he could hardly tell Satan and his little mistress apart. He rarely saw them apart, and as both had black tangled hair and bright black eyes; as one awoke every morning with a happy smile and the other with a jolly bark; as they played all day like wind-shaken shadows and each won every heart at first sight--the likeness was really rather curious. I have always believed that Satan made the spirit of Dinnie's house, orthodox and severe though it was, almost kindly toward his great namesake. I know I have never been able, since I knew little Satan, to think old Satan as bad as I once painted him, though I am sure the little dog had many pretty tricks that the "old boy"

doubtless has never used in order to amuse his friends.

"Shut the door, Saty, please," Dinnie would say, precisely as she would say it to Uncle Billy, the butler, and straightway Satan would launch himself at it--bang! He never would learn to close it softly, for Satan liked that--bang!

If you kept tossing a coin or marble in the air, Satan would keep catching it and putting it back in your hand for another throw, till you got tired. Then he would drop it on a piece of rag carpet, s.n.a.t.c.h the carpet with his teeth, throw the coin across the room, and rush for it like mad, until he got tired. If you put a penny on his nose, he would wait until you counted, one--two-- THREE! Then he would toss it up himself and catch it. Thus, perhaps, Satan grew to love Mammon right well, but for another and better reason than that he liked simply to throw it around--as shall now be made plain.

A rubber ball with a hole in it was his favorite plaything, and he would take it in his mouth and rush around the house like a child, squeezing it to make it whistle. When he got a new ball, he would hide his old one away until the new one was the worse worn of the two, and then he would bring out the old one again. If Dinnie gave him a nickel or a dime, when they went down-town, Satan would rush into a store, rear up on the counter where the rubber b.a.l.l.s were kept, drop the coin, and get a ball for himself. Thus, Satan learned finance. He began to h.o.a.rd his pennies, and one day Uncle Carey found a pile of seventeen under a corner of the carpet.

Usually he carried to Dinnie all coins that he found in the street, but he showed one day that he was going into the ball- business for himself.

Uncle Carey had given Dinnie a nickel for some candy, and, as usual, Satan trotted down the street behind her. As usual, Satan stopped before the knick-knack shop.

"Tum on, Saty," said Dinnie. Satan reared against the door as he always did, and Dinnie said again:

"Tum on, Saty." As usual, Satan dropped to his haunches, but what was unusual, he failed to bark. Now Dinnie had got a new ball for Satan only that morning, so Dinnie stamped her foot.

"I tell you to tum on, Saty." Satan never moved. He looked at Dinnie as much as to say:

"I have never disobeyed you before, little mistress, but this time I have an excellent reason for what must seem to you very bad manners--" and being a gentleman withal, Satan rose on his haunches and begged.

"You're des a pig, Saty," said Dinnie, but with a sigh for the candy that was not to be, Dinnie opened the door, and Satan, to her wonder, rushed to the counter, put his forepaws on it, and dropped from his mouth a dime. Satan had found that coin on the street. He didn't bark for change, nor beg for two b.a.l.l.s, but he had got it in his woolly little head, somehow, that in that store a coin meant a ball, though never before nor afterward did he try to get a ball for a penny.

Satan slept in Uncle Carey's room, for of all people, after Dinnie, Satan loved Uncle Carey best. Every day at noon he would go to an upstairs window and watch the cars come around the corner, until a very tall, square-shouldered young man swung to the ground, and down Satan would scamper--yelping--to meet him at the gate. If Uncle Carey, after supper and when Dinnie was in bed, started out of the house, still in his business clothes, Satan would leap out before him, knowing that he too might be allowed to go; but if Uncle Carey had put on black clothes that showed a big, dazzling shirt-front, and picked up his high hat, Satan would sit perfectly still and look disconsolate; for as there were no parties or theatres for Dinnie, so there were none for him. But no matter how late it was when Uncle Carey came home, he always saw Satan's little black nose against the window-pane and heard his bark of welcome.

After intelligence, Satan's chief trait was lovableness--n.o.body ever knew him to fight, to snap at anything or to get angry; after lovableness, it was politeness. If he wanted something to eat, if he wanted Dinnie to go to bed, if he wanted to get out of the door, he would beg--beg prettily on his haunches, his little red tongue out and his funny little paws hanging loosely. Indeed, it was just because Satan was so little less than human, I suppose, that old Satan began to be afraid he might have a soul. So the wicked old namesake with the Hoofs and Horns laid a trap for little Satan, and, as he is apt to do, he began laying it early-- long, indeed, before Christmas.

When Dinnie started to kindergarten that autumn, Satan found that there was one place where he could never go. Like the lamb, he could not go to school; so while Dinnie was away, Satan began to make friends. He would bark, "Howdy-do?" to every dog that pa.s.sed his gate. Many stopped to rub noses with him through the fence-- even Hugo the mastiff, and nearly all, indeed, except one strange- looking dog that appeared every morning at precisely nine o'clock and took his stand on the corner. There he would lie patiently until a funeral came along, and then Satan would see him take his place at the head of the procession; and thus he would march out to the cemetery and back again. n.o.body knew where he came from nor where he went, and Uncle Carey called him the "funeral dog" and said he was doubtless looking for his dead master. Satan even made friends with a scrawny little yellow dog that followed an old drunkard around--a dog that, when his master fell in the gutter, would go and catch a policeman by the coat-tail, lead the officer to his helpless master, and spend the night with him in jail.