CHAPTER VI.
A THEATRE PARTY.
Again Tom remembered that it was necessary his mother should be informed of the long-expected visitor’s arrival, and he said impatiently:—
“Come on, let’s go to the house now, or the folks will think you ain’t comin’.”
Bill Foss was obliged to attend to his regular business, and left the party as they started up town.
While the boys walked hurriedly on in the direction of Baker’s Court, Josiah was suddenly reminded of a very important duty, and exclaimed as he halted in a convenient door-way:—
“Well, there! I most forgot I had some things in this valise for you fellers!”
The curiosity of the boys was aroused, and Tom asked excitedly:—
“What did you bring? Let’s look at ’em now, ’cause it’ll be a good while before we get home.”
Master Shindle saw no impropriety in unpacking his baggage thus publicly, and, without further urging, opened the huge valise.
“Here’s what I brought you,” he said, handing Tom a package wrapped in newspaper, and tied securely with several strings.
Tom unrolled the bulky parcel, removing layer after layer of paper until he brought to view a small but very lively mud turtle, which protruded its head and legs in the most engaging manner.
“Now, that’s the kind of a feller what’ll foller you ’round the streets,” Josiah said as he held up the shell that his companions might observe more closely the reptile’s beautiful proportions. “Tame him right, an’ I guess he’ll be most as good as a dog, though he can’t go very fast.”
As Tom took the pet, Josiah again plunged his hand into the valise, this time bringing forth a small wooden box, which he gave to Bob as he said:—
“I was goin’ to fetch two; but didn’t dare to put em together, an’ there wasn’t room enough in the valise for another box.”
Opening the lid Bob saw a small green snake, which lifted its head and gazed around inquiringly, as if asking why it had been thus suddenly transported from its home to a place where there was no opportunity of hiding.
Bob thanked his friend for the gift, but looked so longingly toward the turtle that Master Shindle hastened to say:—
“If you’d rather have one of them I can catch more’n a thousand when I get home agin; but seein’s how they’re apt to bite babies, an’ you’ve got the twins an’ Jimmy ’round, I didn’t know as it would do to fetch two.”
“If you’ll send ’em down, I’ll pay the freight,” Bob replied; and Josiah promised that on the day following his return home he would capture as many turtles as his friends might desire.
Then he displayed the gifts intended for the twins and Jimmy,—two last-year’s bird’s nests, a large supply of horse-hair as materials for rings and chains, and a collection of hedge-hog quills which his mother had dyed in various colors.
After these had been inspected and duly admired, the boys continued on their way to the court, walking very slowly because of Josiah’s desire to stop and look at everything around him.
More than once his exclamations of surprise attracted a crowd of newsboys and boot-blacks; but Tom and Bob were careful to prevent him from being annoyed by these young gentlemen, who considered a stranger from the country a fair target for their supposed wit, and Josiah continued slowly on, ignorant of the fact that he was affording others quite as much amusement as he received from the novel scenes.
Under ordinary circumstances, Tom and Bob could have walked from Chatham Square to their home in ten minutes; but on this day it was fully an hour before they arrived at the court, although both hurried Josiah as much as possible by promising to show him all these things and many more, later in the day.
On entering the court Master Shindle looked about him in dismay; and Bob, quick to note the change in the expression of his friend’s face, said with a laugh:—
“Doesn’t seem much like the farm, eh? I told you one week in a place like this would be enough. If you had always lived here, it wouldn’t look so dirty; but you’d be as wild as we were to see the country.”
“Oh, this is nice,” Josiah said quickly, fearing lest his friends might think he was making invidious comparisons; and just then the twins and Jimmy came running up to greet their host of the previous summer, thus bringing to a speedy conclusion what might have been a very awkward conversation.
The dilapidated houses, and the clothes hanging on lines from one side of the court to the other, as if to shut out the light of the sun, gave to Josiah a feeling of homesickness similar to that which he had felt when catching a last glimpse of Towser.
To remain on the principal streets where he could look in the shop windows, or on the waterfront and gaze at the vessels, would have been pleasant; but there was such a wide difference between the buildings of Baker’s Court and the Shindle farm-house, that he would have been quite contented had he known his father was coming after him that same day.
Mrs. Bartlett and Mrs. Green received him cordially, and yet he was far from being comfortable in mind.
The small, stuffy kitchen was not like his mother’s, and he could hardly believe food coming from it would taste as sweet.
The room which he was to share with Bob and Tom was far from being as inviting as his own; and the air, although it was late in the season, seemed oppressively warm.
Very likely Tom and Bob would have made almost the same comparisons in favor of the farm; but Josiah tried earnestly to prevent any show of discontent, and, after doing full justice to the lunch hastily prepared by Mrs. Bartlett, the boys went into the street once more, leaving behind the twins and Jimmy to play with the hedgehog quills at imminent risk of injuring their eyes, or making painful punctures in their skin.
Once in the business portion of the city again, there was so much to attract Josiah’s attention that he entirely forgot the disagreeable impressions of the court; and the three flitted about from window to window to the delight of Master Shindle and the perplexity of his hosts, who found it extremely difficult to keep at a respectful distance the numerous acquaintances who followed in the hope of having some sport at the expense of the boy from the country.
“That is great!” he said when Tom and Bob gave in detail the programme they had arranged for his entertainment.
The party was to visit Coney Island, the park, and, as a rare treat, it had been decided to spend that very evening at the theatre, to which end three gallery tickets had already been purchased.
This last announcement excited Josiah for the moment so that he lost all interest in the novel sights around him.
He had heard of the theatre; for Sam Perry knew a boy living about seven miles from Berry’s Corner who had really been inside such a place, and Josiah was willing to confess that no other form of entertainment could afford him so many pleasurable anticipations.
The sight-seeing, and the promise of the delightful excitement which was yet to come, did not prevent Josiah from remembering the first friend he had made in the city, and he asked anxiously:—
“Is Sadie goin’ with us?”
“Of course not. We don’t want a girl taggin’ ’round, an’ I reckon she wouldn’t care to go very much.”
“Oh, yes she would, ’cause she thought it was awful nice at the circus.”
“Circus!” Bob repeated in surprise. “Where have you seen one?”
“She an’ I went the evenin’ I was tryin’ to find you. It’s down a little ways from where she sells matches.”
“Oh, that’s the dime museum, an’ don’t ’mount to much longside of one up on the Bowery. We can go to them kind of places any day;” and Master Green spoke as if half the marvels of the earth were gathered at this particular place, but yet were hardly worth the attention of himself and his friends.
“But I’d like to see her again. She was mighty good to me.”
“There’ll be plenty of chances for that when we have nothin’ else to do. We’ll skin up ’round Broadway, an’ then go home, for it’ll be pretty near supper time when we get there.”
“Well, I don’t want to make any mistake about seein’ her agin, ’cause I ain’t really squared up for the way she treated me; an’, besides, I’d like to be certain she’s havin’ as good a time as I am, for, ’cordin’ to the looks of things, she gets it pretty tough.”
“That’s a fact,” Bob replied. “It must come kinder hard on anybody what has to live with Mother Hunter; but I reckon she’s got used to it. Anyhow, you shall see her to-morrow if that’ll do any good.”
“An’ will you take her with us to some of the places if I pay the bills?”
“Yes,” Bob replied slowly, but in a tone of indecision, “I s’pose we can fix it somehow;” and with this rather unwilling promise the subject was dropped for the time being.
It was so difficult to tear Master Shindle away from the shop windows that the evening meal had been ready nearly an hour when they finally arrived at Baker’s Court.
In the stuffy little kitchen, which also served as a dining-room, Josiah had once more an opportunity of comparing his home with this, and for at least the tenth time decided that life in the city was entirely different from what it had been pictured by some of his acquaintances at Berry’s Corner.
Instead of an accompaniment to the meal by a bird orchestra, they had the rumble and clatter of carts in the street; in lieu of the perfume of flowers which swept through his mother’s quaint kitchen, was an unpleasant odor from the court, and he ceased to wonder that the beneficiaries of the Fresh Air Fund found the farm such a pleasant abiding place.
There was but little opportunity for reflection on this subject, however. The meal was eaten hurriedly that they might arrive at the place of entertainment before the doors were opened, in order to make certain of obtaining front seats, therefore not a moment was wasted.
Josiah’s remembrance of this visit is not altogether pleasant.
During fully three-quarters of an hour he stood with a large number of boys in the narrow hall-way, pushed here and there until it seemed as if he must be literally flattened like a wafer.
When the doors were finally opened he was borne by very press of numbers up three flights of dimly-lighted stairs into a not over-cleanly place, which was considerably warmer than the carrot patch in July; then down a steep incline until it seemed as if he would surely be pitched from the railing to the vast pit, the bottom of which appeared to be paved with human heads.
The theatre party from Baker’s Court was in the front row, with nothing to obstruct the view of a gaudily-painted piece of canvas, which covered—Josiah knew not what.
He did not speculate as to the possible wonders which might be behind it; for the noisy throng, the heated air, the odor of gas, and the loud buzz of conversation bewildered him to such an extent that he began to fear he should not be able to get away alive.
On one side Tom was telling of the wonderful things which would be revealed when the curtain was raised; and on the other Bob praised the scenery, or the daring of the hero whose brave deeds were to be portrayed, while Josiah listened without understanding a single word.
Then, after much stamping of feet, whistling and cat-calls, came a burst of music, and the visitor from the country began to feel more at his ease.
With elbows resting on the wooden railing, and both hands held behind his ears that not a single note from the noisy orchestra should escape, he gave himself up wholly to what he supposed was the performance, wondering not a little why Tom and Bob had said so much about hair-breadth escapes, when he could see nothing more dangerous than the brass instrument which a musician lengthened and shortened until there seemed every fear he would decapitate his neighbor.
“Is he goin’ to kill the man next to him with that brass thing?” Josiah asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Of course not,” Bob replied scornfully; “that is only one of the orchestry, an’ don’t ’mount to anything. Wait ’till the curtain goes up, an’ then your eyes’ll stick out!”
Josiah waited simply because he was forced to do so; and when the performance began, exclamations of surprise and astonishment burst from his lips, as what appeared to be a veritable forest was suddenly unfolded to view.
During the three hours which followed he remained in a daze of wonder, fear, and bewilderment.
He could not understand why at one time there was a forest behind the curtain, and at another the interior of a house, therefore this sudden change confused him.
It was impossible to hear every word spoken on the stage, and, consequently, he failed to comprehend why people ran around discharging fire-arms so frequently.
Owing to these drawbacks the performance was not as pleasing as it might have been, while the heat, lack of ventilation, and the general excitement, gave him a most severe headache.
Therefore, instead of regretting that the evening’s entertainment had come to an end, as did Tom and Bob, he was only too well satisfied to be in the comparatively fresh air once more.
“To-morrow mornin’ we’ll go up to the park,” Tom said as they walked rapidly toward Baker’s Court; for he fancied, because of his friend’s silence, that the boy from the country was having another attack of homesickness.
This supposition was correct; and when Josiah was in the tiny chamber he would have been perfectly willing to bring his visit to an immediate close, if by such a means he could be transported instantly to his own room, where his mother would be within call.