W. A. G.'s Tale Part 4

By and by they stopped coming past and then I got up and went along the bank and looked for him. I could see, way across the river, a little white speck, shining through the trees, which I knew was our house.

My! didn't I want to be there! I didn't have any matches, of course. I'm not allowed to carry them. I couldn't make a fire, or anything, though it began to get dusky, and still Mr. Garry didn't come.

Then, suddenly, I remembered that he was an absent-minded beggar who forgot things, and maybe he'd forgot me. That made me feel awfully queer and lumpy inside me, and besides I was getting tired.

n.o.body lived on that Island, except maybe some ground-hogs and squirrels and snakes, and--it wasn't any place for a boy who didn't have any food or tent or fire.

First thing I knew, when that struck me, I heard myself bawl--right out, "Oh, Aunty May--COME! Oh, Aunty May!" and then I was really frightened, for it sounded so loud, and so scared, and so babyish.

I kept still for a minute, and swallowed hard and then I yelled, "Hey!

Hey!" out loud, without crying--hoping somebody would hear me. I did it a great many times, but n.o.body answered. Then I remembered that the boys were always landing here and hollering and shouting in fun, and n.o.body would pay any attention to it.

I tried to remember what Uncle Burt'd do if he was caught like this, and little like me. I thought maybe he'd take off his shirt and wave it, but then I remembered it'd be too dark to see. But anyway I guessed I'd better do something, so I took off my blouse, and put my sweater on, and tied my blouse to a tree, and it waved, quite fine, for there was a little breeze coming up. I tried rubbing sticks together for a light, but whoever made up that plan must have had stronger arms and hands than I had, for I rubbed till my arms ached so that I cried some, but I didn't get a single spark of light.

By this time it was very dark, and I was so hoa.r.s.e with hollering, and so aching in my arms with rubbing sticks, and my legs hurt so with running up and down trying to see a boat or something, that I just dumped myself down on the gra.s.s and cried--and--I guess I--fell asleep.

For the next thing I knew I heard some one calling my name, kind of loud, and kind of scared, "Billy, Billy, darling, are you there?" It was Aunty May in a canoe. I tried to call to her, but I was so hoa.r.s.e and tired, I just made a kind of noise in my throat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hey, Robinson Crusoe, here's your Man Friday]

Then I was so afraid she'd paddle away that I let out the finest yell you ever heard, and Aunty May called out, "Hey, Robinson Crusoe. Here's your Man Friday"; and she slid the canoe up to the bank, and I fell in so stiff, and she hugged me so hard, that it's a wonder we didn't upset.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Usually I don't like hugging, but this time it was all right.

Then Aunty May told me that she had begun to get worried and so had Aunty Edith, knowing that Mr. Garry was an absent-minded beggar. Aunty Edith had gone up to Mr. Turner's to find if he was home, but Aunty May had insisted on going out in the canoe, though Mr. Taylor didn't like her to alone, and Mr. Taylor had gone down the towpath, toward the village, looking for us. Well, wasn't Aunty May mad when she found out how long I'd been alone and how badly I'd wanted her. She just paddled as fast as she could, and all the time pretended that we were wild savages who would catch Mr. Garry and put him on a desert island, just to see how he'd like it.

As we got nearer our house there were lights along the river-bank, and we called and a big boat came up to us, and in it was Mr. Garry, with a very white face, and Mr. Turner and Aunty Edith, and she was crying so hard that she couldn't see me at first.

When Aunty May said, "Don't cry, Edith, he's here," and handed me over, she gave me such a hard squeeze that I couldn't speak for a minute.

Mr. Garry all the time kept saying, "Say, old chap, I'm sorry, but I am such an absent-minded beggar." Aunty May said, "Yes, but you'll never have a chance to get absent-minded with this boy again."

He looked terribly sorry, and begged my pardon again, and I told him, "It was all right, only I didn't care to play Robinson Crusoe so truthfully--at night."

They hurried me up to the house and gave me warm things to eat and drink, and let me stay up longer than usual.

Aunty May wouldn't let Mr. Garry touch me or help her at all, and even Aunty Edith wouldn't hardly speak to him, till they found I was all right and not hurt any, except my blouse, which was left on the Island.

Mr. Garry gave me his own silver pen-knife, before he went away, so that I would "nevermore defenseless be," as he said, and we were quite friendly. But after he had gone, I heard Aunty May say that "Never would that absent-minded beggar take her boy away again"; and Aunty Edith said, "He's Burt's boy, not yours."

Aunty May didn't say anything, so I called out, "I'm your boy, too, Aunty May. Uncle Burt said so, and I'll never, never go out with an absent-minded beggar on the river again."

And I never have.

CHAPTER VI

GEORGE

For a while, I did have a real boy to play with, right in the house. It happened this way:--

Martha, who is Aunty Edith's colored washerwoman in the city, had a boy called George, who used to bring the clothes home. He was a little older than me--twelve years old--and he was always smiling, and his teeth were white and his eyes shiny. And when his mother wrote Aunty Edith that he was poorly, Aunty Edith had him sent down for a week--on trial, to stay in the attic above my room, and do the dishes for the Aunties, and run errands. He was to stay longer, if it was all right.

I wish it had been, for George was awful funny. He was very obliging, too, and I liked him. So did Aunty May, for he remembered all the stories his teachers had told him in school, and he would tell them to Aunty May and me, when we sat down under the willow trees, and we just loved it.

What Aunty Edith didn't love was what he did with the green paint. Aunty Edith had a lot left over in a pot after the kitchen was painted, and she thought it would be nice to paint the chairs and tables that we used out of doors.

We used to have breakfast and lunch, and even dinner, out in the little grapevine-covered back porch, which had a cement floor, level with the ground.

So just to keep George happy, Aunty Edith gave him that to do. He commenced it while Aunty May and I were doing lessons, and we could hear Aunty Edith explaining--Aunty Edith always does the explaining--and George all the time saying, "Yas, 'm, yas, 'm, Miss Edith." And by and by Aunty Edith came in and we could hear George whistling and singing.

George did sing awful loud, and funny songs, so you'd have to stop and listen.

This morning he kept singing something about a man named "Sylvester,"

and he kept singing out the same thing over and over again, till Aunty May said, "Oh, dear, I can't hear myself speak. Edith, will you quiet the blackbird?" And Aunty Edith called to George not to sing so loud, and he said, "Yas, 'm, Miss Edith"; and the next minute it began louder than ever.

Then Aunty Edith went downstairs to tell him to take his work farther away from the house.

She hadn't been gone a minute till we heard her say, "Oh, good gracious, what shall I do? Come here, George, and see if you can take it off." George kept saying, "Yas, 'm, Miss Edith, yas, 'm"; and Aunty Edith was being so very spluttery, that Aunty May and I leaned out the window, and then we jerked our heads in and Aunty May said, "Don't you dare laugh out loud, Billy."

Then we looked again, and jerked our heads inside the window every time we felt the laugh coming on, which was pretty often, for you see George had put the paint-can, a small one, right on the doorsill, and Aunty Edith had put her foot in it, and it had caught.

There was Aunty Edith holding on to the grape-arbor while George pulled at the can, and the paint flowing around pretty free. Well, George couldn't pull it off, and finally he had to take a can-opener and cut Aunty Edith's foot out, just as though she were salmon, or something.

When we got to that part, Aunty May and I forgot ourselves and laughed out loud, and then Aunty Edith looked at us, and looked at her foot, and at George's black face all daubed with green paint, and his clothes, too, as he carefully cut her out, and she laughed, too. But it spoiled her shoe, and it took several days to wear the green off George.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He had to take a can-opener and cut Aunty Edith's foot out]

That was the too bad part of it. George was so fine for singing and telling stories and he just couldn't remember to do anything else.

When he went for the mail and the groceries, unless I went with him, he'd forget everything, and come home just as smiling as ever.

And he was brave, too, for he used to chase the village boys when they ran after him and called names, and besides that he and I built a lovely Filipino house up in the biggest willow tree, and had lots of fun, escaping from two boys at the farm across Rabbit Run Bridge, who chased us and tried to catch us. We got up in our tree-house and shot at them with bows and arrows, and they couldn't reach us. I liked having George.

If he'd only stayed funny, without getting dangerous. But George got dangerous.

It was this way: George and the two boys on the farm, Samuel and Charlie Crosscup, were having a talk on the middle of Rabbit Run Bridge, about fire engines. Samuel said the East Penniwell fire engine could get up steam and run to a fire, with Sol Achers's old white horse hitched to her, quicker than a New York fire engine could. George and me said it couldn't. He said, "It could, because why? The East Penniwell horse and engine were used to the roads and the New York horses and engine would have to be showed."

I couldn't think of anything to say, but George said, "No, sah. Dat ain't noways so. For de New York fire engines and horses is so trained that they goes over any road and anywhere according as the Fire Chief he directs, and it doan mek no difference whether they've been up dataways befo' or not They jist naturally eats up all distances."

Well, that made the Crosscup boys mad, and they kept telling all about the East Penniwell engine house, and my! it must be a lovely place, if all they say is true. George he told them then about the New York engine houses, and my! they must be splendid if George really knew. He said he did. He said his mother's cousin washed for three firemen and she'd oughter know. I guess she ought to, but George did remember so much about those things, and forgot so quick about others, that sometimes I really didn't know what to be sure about.

Well, it began to rain, and George was going to take me home, when one of the boys said, "Aw, don't go home, yet. Come on into the old barn and let's play knife until the rain stops."

I guessed we'd ought to go home right away with the bundles and change, but George said, "On no account can I git you wet. Miss Edith wouldn't stand for that nohow." So I went with him. And we played knife on the floor. It was a big empty barn. That is there weren't any cattle in it, just hay.