Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 Part 6

MR MARTIN'S SCALP.

BY JIMMY BROWN.

After that game of mumble-te-peg that me and Mr. Martin played, he did not come to our house for two weeks. Mr. Travers said perhaps the earth he had to gnaw while he was drawing the peg had struck to his insides and made him sick, but I knew it couldn't be that. I've drawn pegs that were drove into every kind of earth, and it never hurt me. Earth is healthy, unless it is lime; and don't you ever let anybody drive a peg into lime. If you were to swallow the least bit of lime, and then drink some water, it would burn a hole through you just as quick as anything.

There was once a boy who found some lime in the closet, and thought it was sugar, and of course he didn't like the taste of it. So he drank some water to take the taste out of his mouth, and pretty soon his mother said: "I smell something burning goodness gracious! the house is on fire." But the boy he gave a dreadful scream, and said, "Ma, it's me!" and the smoke curled up out of his pockets and around his neck, and he burned up and died. I know this is true, because Tom McGinnis went to school with him, and told me about it.

Mr. Martin came to see Susan last night for the first time since we had our game; and I wish he had never come back, for he got me into an awful sc.r.a.pe. This was the way it happened. I was playing Indian in the yard.

I had a wooden tomahawk and a wooden scalping-knife and a bownarrow. I was dressed up in father's old coat turned inside out, and had six chicken feathers in my hair. I was playing I was Green Thunder, the Delaware chief, and was hunting for pale-faces in the yard. It was just after supper, and I was having a real nice time, when Mr. Travers came, and he said, "Jimmy, what are you up to now?" So I told him I was Green Thunder, and was on the war-path. Said he, "Jimmy, I think I saw Mr.

Martin on his way here. Do you think you would mind scalping him?" I said I wouldn't scalp him for nothing, for that would be cruelty; but if Mr. Travers was sure that Mr. Martin was the enemy of the red man, then Green Thunder's heart would ache for revenge, and I would scalp him with pleasure. Mr. Travers said that Mr. Martin was a notorious enemy and oppressor of the Indians, and he gave me ten cents, and said that as soon as Mr. Martin should come and be sitting comfortably on the piazza, I was to give the war-whoop and scalp him.

Well, in a few minutes Mr. Martin came, and he and Mr. Travers and Susan sat on the piazza, and talked as if they were all so pleased to see each other, which was the highestpocracy in the world. After a while Mr.

Martin saw me, and said, "How silly boys are! that boy makes believe he's an Indian, and he knows he is only a little nuisance." Now this made me mad, and I thought I would give him a good scare, just to teach him not to call names if a fellow does beat him in a fair game. So I began to steal softly up the piazza steps, and to get around behind him.

When I had got about six feet from him I gave a war-whoop, and jumped at him. I caught hold of his scalp-lock with one hand, and drew my wooden scalping-knife around his head with the other.

I never got such a fright in my whole life. The knife was that dull that it wouldn't have cut b.u.t.ter; but, true as I sit here, Mr. Martin's whole scalp came right off in my hand. I thought I had killed him, and I dropped his scalp, and said, "For mercy's sake! I didn't go to do it, and I'm awfully sorry." But he just caught up his scalp, stuffed it in his pocket, and jammed his hat on his head, and walked off, saying to Susan, "I didn't come here to be insulted by a little wretch that deserves the gallows."

Mr. Travers and Susan never said a word until he had gone, and then they laughed till the noise brought father out to ask what was the matter.

When he heard what had happened, instead of laughing, he looked very angry, said that "Mr. Martin was a worthy man. My son, you may come up stairs with me."

If you've ever been a boy, you know what happened up stairs, and I needn't say any more on a very painful subject. I didn't mind it so much, for I thought Mr. Martin would die, and then I would be hung, and put in jail; but before she went to bed Susan came and whispered through the door that it was all right; that Mr. Martin was made that way, so he could be taken apart easy, and that I hadn't hurt him. I shall have to stay in my room all day to-day, and eat bread and water; and what I say is that if men are made with scalps that may come off any minute if a boy just touches them, it isn't fair to blame the boy.

[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 34, June 22.]

MISS VAN WINKLE'S NAP.

BY MRS. W. J. HAYS.

CHAPTER II.

"Now, nurse, what is it?" cried Quillie and Fred and Will and Artie, as they rushed from the deck of their odd craft, and after a hasty brus.h.i.+ng, and a dip into the clear spring water, they made their way to the breakfast table.

"Yes, nurse _cherie_," echoed gypsy Julie, "please be so good as to inform--describe-- Oh, what is the word?"

"Tell, tell--that is the word, little Frenchie," said Fred.

"Thanks, monsieur," said Julie, gravely.

Quillie whispered softly to Fred that his manner was rude, whereupon Fred, with a nonsensical bow, turned to Julie.

"My sister 'informs, describes' me as rude; am I?"

"A little, I think," said Julie; but she turned eagerly to hear what nurse had to say.

"Mr. Brown says that he will bring in his first load of hay to-day, and as many as choose can go to the 'Look-out' field and help him, and afterward he will give you all a ride."

"Splendid!" "Glorious!" said the boys.

"Won't it be nice?" said Quillie to Julie.

"Charming!" replied Julie; "but why is it called the Look-out field?"

"Because there is so fine a view from it of the mountains."

"The Catskills?"

"Yes, where old Rip Van Winkle slept for twenty years."

"Did he, truly?"

"So the story goes. Every time it thunders, we think the queer old mountain men are playing nine-pins."

"Do you?" said Julie, with eyes still wider open. "I should like to see them."

"The Indians used to say that an old squaw lived on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge of the doors of Day and Night. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut up the old ones into stars."

"Oh, Quillie, would it not be lovely to seek her, and find out more about the moon and stars?"

"Pshaw!" said Quillie, with scorn. "Do you believe such nonsense, Julie?"

"I don't know," said Julie, "but I think I should like to believe it."

Then they all concluded that they wanted no more breakfast, and there was another rush; for the trunks had come, and each desired some particular treasure--a garden tool, an old hat, a sun-bonnet, a tin pail, or a fis.h.i.+ng-rod.

Nurse was too good-natured to refuse, and so the trunks were opened, and ransacked very thoroughly, until Mr. Brown summoned them; then, like swallows at twilight, they were again all on the wing, darting hither and thither. But in one little brain was a thought like a b.u.t.terfly emerging from its chrysalis.

To Julie this jaunt from the city to the country had been the realization of a dream, or as if she had walked into a page of her story-books, and found the things and people all living and true. The scent of the sweet clover, the twittering of the birds, the deep blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the mountains, the snow-white daisies and the yellow b.u.t.tercups, were things she had read about in the many lonely moments she had spent while her mother was out giving lessons; but in all her little life she had no actual experience of these things; and now here they were, and in addition it was the land of romance--a place where people could sleep for twenty years, a place where queer hobgoblin people played nine-pins. That squaw Quillie had told her about was fascinating; perhaps it was true that she still was living, and oh! how she should like to see her! Perhaps if she walked all day, she might reach the top of that great blue peak, and find in some strange little wigwam that old creature who cut up the old moons into stars, and then what a wonderful tale Julie would have to tell! It would be like visiting the old woman who swept the cobwebs from the sky. There would be no harm in trying. She had often been on errands alone in the great city, where everything was so confusing. Perhaps the squaw would be pleased, and give her some wonderful talisman; or she might relate to her stories of Indian life, which she (Julie) would write down and make into a book; and then no one, not even nurse, would be angry with her for daring to do so courageous a thing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RIDING HOME FROM THE HAY FIELD.--DRAWN BY W. M. CARY.]

Who would have imagined that, as the children tossed about the heaps of fragrant hay, this wild scheme was brewing beneath the brim of a tiny straw hat wreathed with daisies? And who thought to count the merry ones on the top of the wagon-load as it turned homeward? Not nurse, who was sewing beneath a tree, and who gathered up her work and went after her charge in blissful ignorance that one lamb had strayed from the fold.

With eager, hurrying steps Julie had left the meadow and sought a clump of trees; from these she emerged upon a road which seemed much travelled. It was very steep and dusty where it was not rocky, but she was not to be daunted at the outset; so on she went as rapidly as possible, for fear that, being missed, she might be over-taken, and prevented from accomplis.h.i.+ng this great feat. At first she could hear the voices in the field beneath her, but as she hastened on all became silent but the stirring of the summer breeze in the tree-tops, and the far-away cackle of an industrious hen. The road, at first very sunny, had now wound itself beside huge crags, which made a welcome shade, and Julie saw with delight a little water-fall come tumbling down a narrow fissure, plunging into a pool below, and crossing the path. Warm and thirsty, she stopped to refresh herself and listen to the gurgling of the brook. But she must not dawdle, or night might come on, and then it would be hard to find the old squaw, who was perhaps at this moment cutting glittering stars out of the old moons. The difficulty of hanging them up did not once occur to her. Possibly the moon and the stars were not like tinsel, but she had no doubt of the squaw. She had heard that squaws made baskets: would it not be a nice thing to buy a little one for Quillie, and a great big one for nurse?--she would pick out the very prettiest. And so she scrambled on, getting very much heated and soiled, catching her clothes on the briers, getting bits of stone in her shoes, but neither frightened nor concerned about those from whom she had wandered.

Meanwhile Quillie, from her high perch on the hay, began wondering why her little companion was so silent. She supposed Julie was behind her, but, fearful of tumbling, she had been still as a mouse. She twisted about now, a little uneasily, and called Julie, but there was no response. Then Mr. Brown helped her to dismount, and still no Julie was to be seen. So she went into the house, procured a book, and sat on the piazza. Presently nurse came in.

"Where's Julie?" cried Quillie.

"Where?--was she not with you?"