The Adventures of Jimmy Brown

THE

ADVENTURES OF JIMMY BROWN.

MR. MARTIN'S GAME.

What if he is a great deal older than I am! that doesn't give him any right to rumple my hair, does it? I'm willing to respect old age, of course, but I want my hair respected too.

But rumpling hair isn't enough for Mr. Martin; he must call me "Bub," and "Sonny." I might stand "Sonny," but I won't stand being called "Bub" by any living man—not if I can help it. I've told him three or four times "My name isn't 'Bub,' Mr. Martin. My name's Jim, or Jimmy," but he would just grin in an exhausperating kind of way, and keep on calling me "Bub."

My sister Sue doesn't like him any better than I do. He comes to see her about twice a week, and I've heard her say, "Goodness me there's that tiresome old bachelor again." But she treats him just as polite as she does anybody; and when he brings her candy, she says, "Oh Mr. Martin you are too good." There's a great deal of make-believe about girls, I think.

Now that I've mentioned candy, I will say that he might pass it around, but he never thinks of such a thing. Mr. Travers, who is the best of all Sue's young men, always brings candy with him, and gives me a lot. Then he generally gives me a quarter to go to the post-office for him, because he forgot to go, and expects something very important. It takes an hour to go to the post-office and back, but I'd do anything for such a nice man.

One night—it was Mr. Travers's regular night—Mr. Martin came, and wasn't Sue mad! She knew Mr. Travers would come in about half an hour, and she always made it a rule to keep her young men separate.

She sent down word that she was busy, and would be down-stairs after a while. Would Mr. Martin please sit down and wait. So he sat down on the front piazza and waited.

I was sitting on the grass, practising mumble-te-peg a little, and by-and-by Mr. Martin says, "Well, Bub, what are you doing?"

"Playing a game," says I. "Want to learn it?"

"Well, I don't care if I do," says he. So he came out and sat on the grass, and I showed him how to play.

Just then Mr. Travers arrived, and Sue came down, and was awfully glad to see both her friends. "But what in the world are you doing?" she says to Mr. Martin. When she heard that he was learning the game, she said, "How interesting do play one game."

Mr. Martin finally said he would. So we played a game, and I let him beat me very easy. He laughed lit to kill himself when I drew the peg, and said it was the best game he ever played.

"Is there any game you play any better than this, Sonny?" said he, in his most irragravating style.

"Let's have another game," said I. "Only you must promise to draw the peg fair, if I beat you."

"All right," said he. "I'll draw the peg if you beat me, Bub."

O, he felt so sure he was a first-class player. I don't like a conceited man, no matter if he is only a boy.

You can just imagine how quick I beat him. Why, I went right through to "both ears" without stopping, and the first time I threw the knife over my head it stuck in the ground.

I cut a beautiful peg out of hard wood—one of those sharp, slender pegs that will go through anything but a stone. I drove it in clear out of sight, and Mr. Martin, says he, "Why, Sonny, nobody couldn't possibly draw that peg."

"I've drawn worse pegs than that," said I. "You've got to clear away the earth with your chin and front teeth, and then you can draw it."

"That is nonsense," said Mr. Martin, growing red in the face.

"This is a fair and square game," says I, "and you gave your word to draw the peg if I beat you."

"I do hope Mr. Martin will play fair," said Sue. "It would be too bad to cheat a little boy."

So Mr. Martin got down and tried it, but he didn't like it one bit. "See here, Jimmy," said he, "I'll give you half a dollar, and we'll consider the peg drawn."

"That is bribery and corruption," said I. "Mr. Martin, I can't be bribed, and didn't think you'd try to hire me to let you break your promise."

When he saw I wouldn't let up on him, he got down again and went to work.

It was the best fun I ever knew. I just rolled on the ground and laughed till I cried. Sue and Mr. Travers didn't roll, but they laughed till Sue got up and ran into the house, where I could hear her screaming on the front-parlor sofa, and mother crying out, "My darling child where does it hurt you won't you have the doctor Jane do bring the camphor."

Mr. Martin gnawed away at the earth, and used swear-words to himself, and was perfectly raging. After a while he got the peg, and then he got up with his face about the color of a flower-pot, and put on his hat and went out of the front gate rubbing his face with his handkerchief, and never so much as saying good-night. He didn't come near the house again for two weeks.

Mr. Travers gave me a half-dollar to go to the post-office to make up for the one I had refused, and told me that I had displayed roaming virtue, though I don't know exactly what he meant.

He looked over this story, and corrected the spelling for me, only it is to be a secret that he helped me. I'd do almost anything for him, and I'm going to ask Sue to marry him just to please me.

MR. MARTIN'S SCALP.

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 scrape. 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 warwhoop 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 highest-pocracy 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's 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 warwhoop, 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 butter; 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 until 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.

A PRIVATE CIRCUS.

There's going to be a circus here, and I'm going to it; that is, if father will let me. Some people think it's wrong to go to a circus, but I don't. Mr. Travers says that the mind of man and boy requires circuses in moderation, and that the wicked boys in Sunday-school books who steal their employers' money to buy circus tickets wouldn't steal it if their employers, or their fathers or uncles, would give them circus tickets once in a while. I'm sure I wouldn't want to go to a circus every night in the week. All I should want would be to go two or three evenings, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. There was once a boy who was awfully fond of going to the circus, and his employer, who was a very good man, said he'd cure him. So he said to the boy, "Thomas, my son, I'm going to hire you to go to the circus every night. I'll pay you three dollars a week, and give you your board and lodging, if you'll go every night except Sunday; but if you don't go, then you won't get any board and lodging or any money." And the boy said, "Oh, you can just bet I'll go!" and he thought everything was lovely; but after two weeks he got so sick of the circus that he would have given anything to be let to stay away. Finally he got so wretched that he deceived his good employer, and stole money from him to buy school-books with, and ran away and went to school. The older he grew the more he looked back with horror upon that awful period when he went to the circus every night. Mr. Travers says it finally had such an effect upon him that he worked hard all day and read books all night just to keep it out of his mind. The result was that before he knew it he became a very learned and a very rich man. Of course it was very wrong for the boy to steal money to stay away from the circus with, but the story teaches us that if we go to the circus too much, we shall get tired of it, which is a very solemn thing.

We had a private circus at our house last night—at least that's what father called it, and he seemed to enjoy it. It happened in this way. I went into the back parlor one evening, because I wanted to see Mr. Travers. He and Sue always sit there. It was growing quite dark when I went in, and going towards the sofa, I happened to walk against a rocking-chair that was rocking all by itself, which, come to think of it, was an awfully curious thing, and I'm going to ask somebody about it. I didn't mind walking into the chair, for it didn't hurt me much, only I knocked it over, and it hit Sue, and she said, "Oh my get me something quick!" and then fainted away. Mr. Travers was dreadfully frightened, and said, "Run, Jimmy, and get the cologne, or the bay-rum, or something." So I ran up to Sue's room, and felt round in the dark for her bottle of cologne that she always keeps on her bureau. I found a bottle after a minute or two, and ran down and gave it to Mr. Travers, and he bathed Sue's face as well as he could in the dark, and she came to and said, "Goodness gracious do you want to put my eyes out?"

Just then the front-door bell rang, and Mr. Bradford (our new minister) and his wife and three daughters and his son came in. Sue jumped up and ran into the front parlor to light the gas, and Mr. Travers came to help her. They just got it lit when the visitors came in, and father and mother came down-stairs to meet them. Mr. Bradford looked as if he had seen a ghost, and his wife and daughters said, "Oh my!" and father said, "What on earth!" and mother just burst out laughing, and said, "Susan, you and Mr. Travers seem to have had an accident with the ink-stand."

You never saw such a sight as those poor young people were. I had made a mistake, and brought down a bottle of liquid blacking. Mr. Travers had put it all over Sue's face, so that she was jet black, all but a little of one cheek and the end of her nose; and then he had rubbed his hands on his own face until he was like an Ethiopian leopard, only he could change his spots if he used soap enough.

You couldn't have any idea how angry Sue was with me—just as if it was my fault, when all I did was to go up-stairs for her, and get a bottle to bring her to with; and it would have been all right if she hadn't left the blacking-bottle on her bureau; and I don't call that tidy, if she is a girl. Mr. Travers wasn't a bit angry; but he came up to my room and washed his face, and laughed all the time. And Sue got awfully angry with him, and said she would never speak to him again after disgracing her in that heartless way. So he went home, and I could hear him laughing all the way down the street, and Mr. Bradford and his folks thought that he and Sue had been having a minstrel show, and mother thinks they'll never come to the house again.

As for father, he was almost as much amused as Mr. Travers, and he said it served Sue right, and he wasn't going to punish the boy to please her. I'm going to try to have another circus some day, though this one was all an accident, and of course I was dreadfully sorry about it.

BURGLARS.

Some people are afraid of burglars. Girls are awfully afraid of them. When they think there's a burglar in the house, they pull the clothes over their heads and scream "Murder father Jimmy there's a man in the house call the police fire!" just as if that would do any good. What you ought to do if there is a burglar is to get up and shoot him with a double-barrelled gun and then tie him and send the servant out to tell the police that if they will call after breakfast you will have something ready for them that will please them. I shouldn't be a bit frightened if I woke up and found a strange man in my room. I should just pretend that I was asleep and keep watching him and when he went to climb out of the window and got half way out I'd jump up and shut the window down on him and tie his legs. But you can't expect girls to have any courage, or to know what to do when anything happens.

We had been talking about burglars one day last week just before I went to bed, and I thought I would put my bownarrow where it would be handy if a robber did come. It is a nice strong bow, and I had about thirty arrows with sharp points in the end about half an inch long, that I made out of some big black pins that Susan had in her pin-cushion. My room is in the third story, just over Sue's room, and the window comes right down on the floor, so that you can lie on the floor and put your head out. I couldn't go to sleep that night very well, though I ate about a quart of chestnuts after I went to bed and I've heard mother say that if you eat a little something delicate late at night it will make you go to sleep.

A long while after everybody had gone to bed I heard two men talking in a low tone under the window, and I jumped up to see what was the matter. Two dreadful ruffians were standing under Sue's window, and talking so low that it was a wonder I could hear anything.

One of them had something that looked like a tremendous big squash, with a long neck, and the other had something that looked like a short crowbar. It didn't take me long to understand what they were going to do. The man with the crowbar was intending to dig a hole in the foundation of the house and then the other man would put the big squash which was full of dynamighty in the hole and light a slow-match and run away and blow the house to pieces. So I thought the best thing would be to shoot them before they could do their dreadful work.

I got my bownarrow and laid down on the floor and took a good aim at one of the burglars. I hit him in the leg, and he said, "Ow! ow! I've run a thorn mornamile into my leg."

Then I gave the other fellow an arrow, and he said, "My goodness this place is full of thorns, there's one in my leg too."

Then they moved back a little and I began to shoot as fast as ever I could. I hit them every time, and they were frightened to death. The fellow with the thing like a squash dropped it on the ground and the other fellow jumped on it just as I hit him in the cheek and smashed it all to pieces. You can just believe that they did not stay in our yard very long. They started for the front gate on a run, yelling "Ow! ow!" and I am sorry to say using the worst kind of swear-words. The noise woke up father and he lit the gas and I saw the two wretches in the street picking the arrows out of each other but they ran off as soon as they saw the light.

Father says that they were not burglars at all, but were only two idiots that had come to serenade Sue; but when I asked him what serenading was he said it was far worse than burglary, so I know the men were the worst kind of robbers. I found a broken guitar in the yard the next morning, and there wasn't anything in it that would explode, but it would have been very easy for the robbers to have filled it with something that would have blown the house to atoms. I suppose they preferred to put it in a guitar so that if they met anybody nobody would suspect anything.

Neither mother nor Sue showed any gratitude to me for saving their lives, though father did say that for once that boy had showed a little sense.

When Mr. Travers came that evening and I told him about it he said, "Jimmy! there's such a thing as being just a little too smart."

I don't know what he meant, but I suppose he was a little cross, for he had hurt himself some way—he wouldn't tell me how—and had court-plaster on his cheek and on his hands and walked as if his legs were stiff. Still, if a man doesn't feel well he needn't be rude.

MR. MARTIN'S EYE.

I've made up my mind to one thing, and that is, I'll never have anything to do with Mr. Martin again. He ought to be ashamed of himself, going around and getting boys into scrapes, just because he's put together so miserably. Sue says she believes it's mucilage, and I think she's right. If he couldn't afford to get himself made like other people, why don't he stay at home? His father and mother must have been awfully ashamed of him. Why, he's liable to fall apart at any time, Mr. Travers says, and some of these days he'll have to be swept up off the floor and carried home in three or four baskets.

There was a ghost one time who used to go around, up-stairs and down-stairs, in an old castle, carrying his head in his hand, and stopping in front of everybody he met, but never saying a word. This frightened all the people dreadfully, and they couldn't get a servant to stay in the house unless she had the policeman to sit up in the kitchen with her all night. One day a young doctor came to stay at the castle, and said he didn't believe in ghosts, and that nobody ever saw a ghost, unless they had been making beasts of themselves with mince-pie and wedding-cake. So the old lord of the castle he smiled very savage, and said, "You'll believe in ghosts before you've been in this castle twenty-four hours, and don't you forget it." Well, that very night the ghost came into the young doctor's room and woke him up. The doctor looked at him, and said, "Ah, I perceive: painful case of imputation of the neck. Want it cured, old boy?" The ghost nodded; though how he could nod when his head was off I don't know. Then the doctor got up and got a thread and needle, and sewed the ghost's head on, and pushed him gently out of the door, and told him never to show himself again. Nobody ever saw that ghost again, for the doctor had sewed his head on wrong side first, and he couldn't walk without running into the furniture, and of course he felt too much ashamed to show himself. This doctor was Mr. Travers's own grandfather, and Mr. Travers knows the story is true.

But I meant to tell you about the last time Mr. Martin came to our house. It was a week after I had scalped him; but I don't believe he would ever have come if father hadn't gone to see him, and urged him to overlook the rudeness of that unfortunate and thoughtless boy. When he did come, he was as smiling as anything; and he shook hands with me, and said, "Never mind, Bub, only don't do it again."

By-and-by, when Mr. Martin and Sue and Mr. Travers were sitting on the piazza, and I was playing with my new base-ball in the yard, Mr. Martin called out, "Pitch it over here; give us a catch." So I tossed it over gently, and he pitched it back again, and said why didn't I throw it like a man, and not toss it like a girl. So I just sent him a swift ball—a regular daisy-cutter. I knew he couldn't catch it, but I expected he would dodge. He did try to dodge, but it hit him along-side of one eye, and knocked it out. You may think I am exaggelying, but I'm not. I saw that eye fly up against the side of the house, and then roll down the front steps to the front walk, where it stopped, and winked at me.

I turned, and ran out of the gate and down the street as hard as ever I could. I made up my mind that Mr. Martin was spoiled forever, and that the only thing for me to do was to make straight for the Spanish Main and be a pirate. I had often thought I would be a pirate, but now there was no help for it; for a boy that had knocked out a gentleman's eye could never be let to live in a Christian country. After a while I stopped to rest, and then I remembered that I wanted to take some provisions in a bundle, and a big knife to kill wolves. So I went back as soon as it was dark, and stole round to the back of the house, so I could get in the window and find the carving-knife and some cake. I was just getting in the window, when somebody put their arms around me, and said, "Dear little soul! was he almost frightened to death?" It was Sue, and I told her that I was going to be a pirate and wanted the carving-knife and some cake and she mustn't tell father and was Mr. Martin dead yet? So she told me that Mr. Martin's eye wasn't injured at all, and that he had put it in again, and gone home; and nobody would hurt me, and I needn't be a pirate if I didn't want to be.

It's perfectly dreadful for a man to be made like Mr. Martin, and I'll never come near him again. Sue says that he won't come back to the house, and if he does she'll send him away with something—I forget what it was—in his ear. Father hasn't heard about the eye yet, but if he does hear about it, there will be a dreadful scene, for he bought a new rattan cane yesterday. There ought to be a law to punish men that sell rattan canes to fathers, unless they haven't any children.

PLAYING CIRCUS.

The circus came through our town three weeks ago, and me and Tom McGinnis went to it. We didn't go together, for I went with father, and Tom helped the circus men water their horses, and they let him in for nothing. Father said that circuses were dreadfully demoralizing, unless they were mixed with wild animals, and that the reason why he took me to this particular circus was that there were elephants in it, and the elephant is a Scripture animal, Jimmy, and it cannot help but improve your mind to see him. I agreed with father. If my mind had to be improved, I thought going to the circus would be a good way to do it.

We had just an elegant time. I rode on the elephant, but it wasn't much fun for they wouldn't let me drive him. The trapeze was better than anything else, though the Central African Chariot Races and the Queen of the Arena, who rode on one foot, were gorgeous. The trapeze performances were done by the Patagonian Brothers, and you'd think every minute they were going to break their necks. Father said it was a most revolting sight and do sit down and keep still Jimmy or I can't see what's going on. I think father had a pretty good time, and improved his mind a good deal, for he was just as nice as he could be, and gave me a whole pint of pea-nuts.

Mr. Travers says that the Patagonian Brothers live on their trapezes, and never come down to the ground except when a performance is going to begin. They hook their legs around it at night, and sleep hanging with their heads down, just like the bats, and they take their meals and study their lessons sitting on the bar, without anything to lean against. I don't believe it; for how could they get their food brought up to them? and it's ridiculous to suppose that they have to study lessons. It grieves me very much to say so, but I am beginning to think that Mr. Travers doesn't always tell the truth. What did he mean by telling Sue the other night that he loved cats, and that her cat was perfectly beautiful, and then when she went into the other room he slung the cat out of the window, clear over into the asparagus bed, and said get out you brute? We cannot be too careful about always telling the truth, and never doing anything wrong.

Tom and I talked about the circus all the next day, and we agreed we'd have a circus of our own, and travel all over the country, and make heaps of money. We said we wouldn't let any of the other boys belong to it, but we would do everything ourselves, except the elephants. So we began to practise in Mr. McGinnis's barn every afternoon after school. I was the Queen of the Arena, and dressed up in one of Sue's skirts, and won't she be mad when she finds that I cut the bottom off of it!—only I certainly meant to get her a new one with the very first money I made. I wore an old umbrella under the skirt, which made it stick out beautifully, and I know I should have looked splendid standing on Mr. McGinnis's old horse, only he was so slippery that I couldn't stand on him without falling off and sticking all the umbrella ribs into me.

Tom and I were the Madagascar Brothers, and we were going to do everything that the Patagonian Brothers did. We practised standing on each other's head hours at a time, and I did it pretty well, only Tom he slipped once when he was standing on my head, and sat down on it so hard that I don't much believe that my hair will ever grow any more.

The barn floor was most too hard to practise on, so last Saturday Tom said we'd go into the parlor, where there was a soft carpet, and we'd put some pillows on the floor besides. All Tom's folks had gone out, and there wasn't anybody in the house except the girl in the kitchen. So we went into the parlor, and put about a dozen pillows and a feather-bed on the floor. It was elegant fun turning somersaults backward from the top of the table; but I say it ought to be spelled summersets, though Sue says the other way is right.

We tried balancing things on our feet while we laid on our backs on the floor. Tom balanced the musical box for ever so long before it fell; but I don't think it was hurt much, for nothing except two or three little wheels were smashed. And I balanced the water-pitcher, and I shouldn't have broken it if Tom hadn't spoken to me at the wrong minute.