The Copy-Cat and Other Stories Part 6

"Tell if you want to. I'd enough sight rather be spanked than marry you."

A gleam of respect came into the little girl's wisely regarding blue eyes. She, with the swiftness of her s.e.x, recognized in forlorn little Johnny the making of a man. "Oh, well," said she, loftily, "I never was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not grown up, and there will be my trousseau to get, and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet a boy much nicer than you on the steamer."

"Meet him if you want to."

Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull with more than respect--with admiration--but she kept guard over her little tongue. "Well, you can leave that for the future," said she with a grown-up air.

"I ain't going to leave it. It's settled for good and all now," growled Johnny.

To his immense surprise, Lily curved her white embroidered sleeve over her face and began to weep.

"What's the matter now?" asked Johnny, sulkily, after a minute.

"I think you are a real horrid boy," sobbed Lily.

Lily looked like nothing but a very frilly, sweet, white flower.

Johnny could not see her face. There was nothing to be seen except that delicate fluff of white, supported on dainty white-socked, white-slippered limbs.

"Say," said Johnny.

"You are real cruel, when I--I saved your--li-fe," wailed Lily.

"Say," said Johnny, "maybe if I don't see any other girl I like better I will marry you when I am grown up, but I won't if you don't stop that howling."

Lily stopped immediately. She peeped at him, a blue peep from under the flopping, embroidered brim of her hat. "Are you in earnest?" She smiled faintly. Her blue eyes, wet with tears, were lovely; so was her hesitating smile.

"Yes, if you don't act silly," said Johnny. "Now you had better run home, or your mother will wonder where that baby-carriage is."

Lily walked away, smiling over her shoulder, the smile of the happily subjugated. "I won't tell anybody, Johnny," she called back in her flute-like voice.

"Don't care if you do," returned Johnny, looking at her with chin in the air and shoulders square, and Lily wondered at his bravery.

But Johnny was not so brave and he did care. He knew that his best course was an immediate return home, but he did not know what he might have to face. He could not in the least understand why his aunt Janet had not told at once. He was sure that she knew. Then he thought of a possible reason for her silence; she might have feared his arrest at the hands of the chief of police. Johnny quailed. He knew his aunt Janet to be rather a brave sort of woman. If she had fears, she must have had reason for them. He might even now be arrested. Suppose Lily did tell. He had a theory that girls usually told. He began to speculate concerning the horrors of prison. Of course he would not be executed, since his aunt was obviously very far from being killed, but he might be imprisoned for a long term.

Johnny went home. He did not kick the dust any more. He walked very steadily and staidly. When he came in sight of the old Colonial mansion, with its ma.s.sive veranda pillars, he felt chilly. However, he went on.

He pa.s.sed around to the south door and entered and smelled shortcake.

It would have smelled delicious had he not had so much on his mind. He looked through the hall, and had a glimpse of his uncle Jonathan in the study, writing. At the right of the door was his father's office. The door of that was open, and Johnny saw his father pouring things from bottles. He did not look at Johnny. His mother crossed the hall. She had on a long white ap.r.o.n, which she wore when making her famous cream shortcakes. She saw Johnny, but merely observed, "Go and wash your face and hands, Johnny; it is nearly supper-time."

Johnny went up-stairs. At the upper landing he found his aunt Janet waiting for him. "Come here," she whispered, and Johnny followed her, trembling, into her own room. It was a large room, rather crowded with heavy, old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture. Aunt Janet had freed herself from dust and was arrayed in a purple silk gown. Her hair was looped loosely on either side of her long face. She was a handsome woman, after a certain type.

"Stand here, Johnny," said she. She had closed the door, and Johnny was stationed before her. She did not seem in the least injured nor the worse for her experience. On the contrary, there was a bright-red flush on her cheeks, and her eyes shone as Johnny had never seen them. She looked eagerly at Johnny.

"Why did you do that?" she said, but there was no anger in her voice.

"I forgot," began Johnny.

"Forgot what?" Her voice was strained with eagerness.

"That you were not another boy," said Johnny.

"Tell me," said Aunt Janet. "No, you need not tell me, because if you did it might be my duty to inform your parents. I know there is no need of your telling. You MUST be in the habit of fighting with the other boys."

"Except the little ones," admitted Johnny.

To Johnny's wild astonishment, Aunt Janet seized him by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes with a look of adoration and immense approval. "Thank goodness," said she, "at last there is going to be a fighter in the Trumbull family. Your uncle would never fight, and your father would not. Your grandfather would. Your uncle and your father are good men, though; you must try to be like them, Johnny."

"Yes, ma'am," replied Johnny, bewildered.

"I think they would be called better men than your grandfather and my father," said Aunt Janet.

"Yes, ma'am."

"I think it is time for you to have your grandfather's watch," said Aunt Janet. "I think you are man enough to take care of it." Aunt Janet had all the time been holding a black leather case. Now she opened it, and Johnny saw the great gold watch which he had seen many times before and had always understood was to be his some day, when he was a man. "Here,"

said Aunt Janet. "Take good care of it. You must try to be as good as your uncle and father, but you must remember one thing--you will wear a watch which belonged to a man who never allowed other men to crowd him out of the way he elected to go."

"Yes, ma'am," said Johnny. He took the watch.

"What do you say?" inquired his aunt, sharply.

"Thank you."

"That's right. I thought you had forgotten your manners. Your grandfather never did."

"I am sorry. Aunt Janet," muttered Johnny, "that I--"

"You need never say anything about that," his aunt returned, quickly.

"I did not see who you were at first. You are too old to be spanked by a woman, but you ought to be whipped by a man, and I wish your grandfather were alive to do it."

"Yes, ma'am," said Johnny. He looked at her bravely. "He could if he wanted to," said he.

Aunt Janet smiled at him proudly. "Of course," said she, "a boy like you never gets the worst of it fighting with other boys."

"No, ma'am," said Johnny.

Aunt Janet smiled again. "Now run and wash your face and hands," said she; "you must not keep supper waiting. Your mother has a paper to write for her club, and I have promised to help her."

"Yes, ma'am," said Johnny. He walked out, carrying the great gold timepiece, bewildered, embarra.s.sed, modest beneath his honors, but little c.o.c.k of the walk, whether he would or no, for reasons entirely and forever beyond his ken.

JOHNNY-IN-THE-WOODS

JOHNNY TRUMBULL, he who had demonstrated his claim to be c.o.c.k of the Walk by a most impious hand-to-hand fight with his own aunt, Miss Janet Trumbull, in which he had been decisively victorious, and won his spurs, consisting of his late grandfather's immense, solemnly ticking watch, was to take a new path of action. Johnny suddenly developed the prominent Trumbull trait, but in his case it was inverted. Johnny, as became a boy of his race, took an excursion into the past, but instead of applying the present to the past, as was the tendency of the other Trumbulls, he forcibly applied the past to the present. He fairly plastered the past over the exigencies of his day and generation like a penetrating poultice of mustard, and the results were peculiar.

Johnny, being bidden of a rainy day during the midsummer vacation to remain in the house, to keep quiet, read a book, and be a good boy, obeyed, but his obedience was of a doubtful measure of wisdom.

Johnny got a book out of his uncle Jonathan Trumbull's dark little library while Jonathan was walking sedately to the post-office, holding his dripping umbrella at a wonderful slant of exactness, without regard to the wind, thereby getting the soft drive of the rain full in his face, which became, as it were, bedewed with tears, entirely outside any cause of his own emotions.