W. A. G.'s Tale Part 3

Well, every day I kept a watch-out for that boy, and for a whole week I didn't see him.

One Monday, Aunty May asked Aunty Edith if I couldn't go down,--it was raining,--if I put on my raincoat and boots, with Mr. Taylor, when he went to the mail, and bring her some stamps and stamped envelopes. Aunty Edith said, "Oh, all right, May, but it seems to me you eat stamps.

They disappear so fast." Aunty May laughed, and said,

"Be-that-as-it-may," which is what she always says when she wants to stop discussing, "William goes."

So I got ready, and Mr. Taylor and me started down. It's a mile away.

Mr. Taylor doesn't like umbrellas, neither do I, so, as it was only misting, Aunty May said I needn't.

Just as we got to Rabbit Run Bridge, who came along, with his mules, and the same ca.n.a.l boat, and the same man asleep, under an umbrella this time, but that BOY!

Mr. Taylor says, that the et-i-ket of such things makes him leave me and go sit on the bridge while I had it out. So I went down and said to the boy, "Hey, you, where's my cap?" And he grinned and said, "I give it to your eel. He's a-wearing of it now, and it looks fine on him."

That strikes me so funny that I began to laugh; then I remembered that wasn't what I wanted to do. So I says, "Come on down till I polish you up for what you did to my cap"; and he says, "I'll be down in a minute to fix you for what you done to my mule. I've gotter put him in trousers to-morrow, his legs is so damaged."

Then I began to laugh again, at the thought of a mule in trousers. "Aw, come on down," I said. "You ain't got any trousers for him." "Have, too," he said; "I'm making them spare minutes out of Turkey red. And when I adds bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and pockets I'll put 'em on, the next time he pa.s.ses your house."

I began to laugh again, and then he jumped down, and before I knew it hit me a punch on the nose. That made me so mad that I hit at him and it struck his leg, and he said, "Ouch," and jumped so that I looked at his leg, and saw it was black and blue already.

"Who did that?" I said.

"Never you mind, baby dear," he said: "come on. If my leg did get catched between the boat and the bank and ground agin a stone this morning, I can still fight an eel-catcher."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Never you mind, baby dear, come on"]

And he hopped up to me on one foot, and I saw he wasn't much bigger than me, maybe eleven or twelve, and he had all he could do to keep from crying because his leg hurt him so; but he was so quick that I just had to dodge to get out of the way.

"Say," I said, after I'd gotten out of his reach, "I don't want to hit you when you're hurt. And anyway," I said, "I don't know that I care about fighting with anybody who can make eels wear caps and mules red trousers. Wait a minute and I'll get a clean rag and some witch-hazel for your leg."

"No, you don't," he says; "I ain't going to be fussed over, but if you gotta pitcher-book, like the one I seen you reading one day, that, an'

something to chew'll keep my mind off my leg, and when it's all right again, I'll come past and smash you into bait for eels."

That didn't seem quite what I wanted, but I told Mr. Taylor the boy was hurt and I couldn't fight, and he said "Certainly not--agin reg-u-lations."

Then he said he'd wait for me a minute, and I ran back home, because I knew I'd get there faster than any ca.n.a.l mule, and I bust into the room, and told Aunty May, and first she didn't like my busting in like that, and then she got interested. She gave me a picture-book and a piece of rag, and some witch-hazel in a bottle, and a big piece of cake. When I got out, the boy was just coming up to the fence, and Aunty May wanted to tie up his leg for him, but he wouldn't. So she explained to him that the stuff in the bottle and the rag was for his leg, and he said, "Yes, 'm, thanks," and then she went in the house quick, so's I could speak to him myself. I'd asked her to.

He said, "Well, eel-catcher, this will help me some. And if I pa.s.s this way agin, I'll look you up."

"Oh, do," I said.

"Want yer book back?" he calls.

"No," I said, "when you get through with it, give it to the eel."

"No," says he, "he's not fond of reading, but I know an old mushrat that's fond of anything like print. I'll give it to him, so any time you see him reading it by moonlight, with his spectacles on, you'll know it's my friend."

"Oh, come back soon," I called, "and tell me more about it"; for he was getting slowly and slowly away from me.

"I will," he shouted, "if I don't make a mistake and swallow the witch-hazel."

CHAPTER V

ON THE DELAWARE

I thought I'd never get tired of having a river at our back door, but one day I nearly hated the Delaware.

This is how it happened: Aunty Edith had a rowboat with a place in the stern where you could fix a big sketching-umbrella, and go sketching without getting too sunburnt; and when I was very good, 'specially good, I could go with her.

When I was just ordinary good, and Aunty Edith wasn't using the boat, Aunty May and I used to borrow it and play "Robinson Crusoe," and Aunty May made the funniest "Man Friday" you ever saw. She would pretend not to know any language but "glub-glub," and so I had to teach her the names of things and she would shake all her hair down and dance a war-dance, when I got her to understand. This was when we'd reached our Island. There was one across the river from us, and on a corner of it we used to picnic and play.

Mr. Turner's children all were girls, and they went to school, or had music-lessons, or something, so I only had them once in a while to play with, and then they always wanted to play fairy-tales, and make me the Prince. I hate Princes because they're always bothering about finding some Princess. I'd rather have been an Ogre or a Dwarf or a Bad Giant.

They had some fun. But the girls always got their Indian Boy to be those. He was a big boy from the Carlisle Indian School, who came in the summer to help about the house and the grounds, and he was great fun. He showed me how to make bows and arrows, and taught me how to swim and things like that, and how to push off a canoe. But mostly Aunty May was the one I had to play with right on the spot, and just when you'd made up your mind that she was a grown-up and wouldn't do it, she'd begin some funny thing, and she was almost as good as a real boy.

Well, Mr. Turner had a man visiting him, a painting-man, and he came down to see Aunty Edith, and they put their heads on one side and screwed up their eyes, and looked at paintings, and had tea, and talked about art so long that Aunty May and I couldn't be quiet any longer, but just had to go down into the garden and play Wild Men of Borneo. That means taking a beanpole and yelling and dancing and trying to see who can vault and jump the farthest with the pole, and when you win you say, "Glug-Glug."

We were right in the middle of this, and Aunty May was a little red-faced, and her hair was kind of wild, when we heard somebody laugh, and there was the painter-man down by the river, laughing as hard as he could laugh; and Aunty Edith trying to look severe at Aunty May and not able to, on account of her looking so comical. She had a black smudge from the end of the beanpole, which had been in a bonfire, across her forehead. You see she had just jumped the farthest, and was hollering, "Glug-Glug."

Aunty May laughed pretty hard, too, and we all laughed then, and Aunty May went up to the house to turn into a clean-faced grown-up again, and Aunty Edith unlocked the boat and handed the big umbrella to the man and told him to use the boat as often and as long as he liked. He put his paint-box and sketch-block in, and got in himself, and I stood looking at him, wis.h.i.+ng he'd ask me--when he did.

"Want to come, young man?" he said, and I said, "Yes, I'll take my book and my fish-line and be very quiet. May I, Aunty Edith?"

Aunty Edith said, kind of doubtful, "I'm not going, William. Maybe you'd better not."

Well, I guess I looked awful sorry at that, for the man said, his name was Mr. Garry Louden,--"Oh, let him come, Edith, I'll look after him"; and Aunty Edith said, "But you're such an absent-minded beggar, Garry, and this is Burt's most precious charge."

"Oh, he'll be all right," Mr. Garry said; "I'll bring him home right as a trivet. Hop in, son."

So I jumped in and waved good-bye to Aunty Edith, and we started up the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What's an absent-minded beggar?"]

"What's an absent-minded beggar?" I asked Mr. Garry, and he said, "Oh, a fellow like me, who's always got his head full of pictures and things, and forgets what he's at."

"Then you don't really beg for anything, do you?" I said.

"Lord, no," he said, "except when I'm out with talkative young sports, and then I beg them to keep quiet."

So I took my fish-line and sat still as a mouse, while he looked up and down the river, and whistled to himself--when he got a good idea, I guess, for after he'd whistled some, he'd let the boat drift and make marks in his sketch-book. He was a nice man, but not used to little boys, I think, for he used awful big words, and didn't answer questions like Aunties and Uncles do.

By and by I told him about the Island, and he said, "Right you are, young Soc-ra-tees," and we landed there, and he kept saying, "Ripping,"

"Splendid," and things like that, and by and by he fished out some sandwiches and sweet chocolate from his pocket, and gave me some, and told me to stay there while he rowed around and explored farther up the side of the Island. I said, "All right," for with things to eat, and a nice brook, and a shady place, and a book, no boy need have any trouble finding things to do to keep himself amused. And I didn't.

I made a s.h.i.+p, and loaded it, and I made a fort on the other side of the brook, and when the s.h.i.+p came near the fort, the men from the fort came out and had a fight and sank her. Then when I got tired of that I read my book, and I read all I wanted to, and still Mr. Garry didn't come back. I could hear voices on the river, and once in a while a canoe shot past, but none of them was Mr. Garry, or Aunty Edith's rowboat.