THE
BOY WHO WANTED TO SEE THE WORLD.
“Nothing but school, school—I am tired of it; I am tired of living at home; I am tired of every thing. My father is kind enough, so is my mother; but I want to be a man for myself. I am a very tall boy of my age; I am sure it is time I had off my round jacket. I want to see the world; I don’t believe it is necessary for a fellow to swallow so many Greek and Latin dictionaries before he can do it. I have a great mind to ‘clear out;’ there is a quarter of a dollar up in my box, and I am a ‘prime’ walker; pooh—who cares? They should not tie a fellow up so, if they don’t want him to run off. I can’t stand it; I will go this very day; of course I sha’n’t want any clothes but those I have on my back; they ought to last me a year; they are right out of the tailor’s shop. He didn’t know, when he made them, what a long journey they were going; who knows but one of these days, this very suit of clothes may be shown in a glass case, to crowds of people, as the very suit that the famous traveler, John Sims, wore when he was a boy. I like that! I never could see the use of keeping boys cooped up at home. Who wants to be a walking dictionary? I don’t. I feel as if I could go round the world and back again in twenty minutes; no—not back; you don’t catch me back in a hurry! I should like to see myself come sneaking home, after Bill Jones, and Sam Jackson, and Will Johnson, and all the fellows in the street, had heard I had run off. Of course they’ll miss me awfully; I am ‘prime’ at ‘hop-scotch,’ and ‘bat-and-ball,’ and ‘hockey.’ I can stand on my head longer than any fellow among them; and when it comes to leaping over a post—ah, just ask my mother how many pairs of trousers I have stripped out doing it. I guess Jack Adams will miss me in the geography class; he always expects me to tell him his lesson; stupid dunce! I guess the school-master will miss me, too, for I was always the show-off-fellow, when company came into school; they can’t say I didn’t study my lessons well; but I am sick of it, crammed to death, and now I’m off. I wonder if I shall ever be sick when I am on my travels; that would be rather bad; mother is so kind when a fellow is sick: pshaw—I won’t be sick—who’s afraid? who’s a cry-baby? not I; I am John Sims, the great traveler that is to be—hurrah! I wonder who will have my old sled ‘Winded Arrow?’ I dare say sis will be going down hill on it; what a plague sisters are. Dora always has the biggest piece of pie; not that I care about it—I am too much of a man; but it is confoundedly provoking; if you try to have a little fun with girls; they holler out, ‘Oh, don’t, you hurt!’ and they bawl for just nothing at all, except to get their brothers a boxed ear. I can’t bear girls; I never could see any use in them. Now, if Dora had been a boy—ah, that would have been fun; he could have gone off with me on my travels; well—never mind about that, it is time I was going, if I mean to go to-day; father will be home to dinner soon, and then my plan will be all knocked in the head; I shall be sent out of an errand, or some such thing. I guess I will go out at the back door; it is ridiculous, but somehow or other I feel just as if every body knew what I was going to do; but once round the corner—down —— street—and off on the railroad track, and they may all whistle for Johnny Sims, the famous traveler.”
“Thump—thump—thump! I wonder who that is, knocking at my front door,” said Betty Smith; “I hope it is not the minister! I can’t leave these preserves for any body! thump—thump! What a hurry some folks are in, that they can’t give a body a chance to wipe their sticky fingers on a roller; nobody comes here but the peddler and the tinman, unless it is the minister; who can it be?” and Betty opened the door, and hurled from between her teeth, her usual blunt, “What do you want?”
“A piece of bread, if you please; I’ve taken such a long walk, and I am very hungry.”
“Where did you come from?” asked Betty, “and where are you going? and why didn’t you put a piece of bread or something in your pocket before you started, hey?”
“I did not think I should be so hungry,” said the boy.
“Well—where are you going now, any how?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know? that’s a pretty story! how did you come by those good clothes? I’ll bet a sixpence you stole ’em; they are genuine broadcloth—fine as our minister wears—and you begging for a piece of bread! I can’t put that and that together. You don’t get any bread from me, till you open your mouth a little wider, my young mister, and tell me what you are up to. I shouldn’t wonder if you were sent here by some bad people, or something, to see if my man was to home; I can tell you now that he ain’t, but there’s a gun behind that kitchen door that’s better than forty of him, and I know how to handle it, too. Do you hear that, now? I’ll have you taken to—taken to—I’ll have something done to you—see if I don’t; if you don’t tell me in two minutes who sent you to my house!” said the curious Betty. “I don’t believe you are hungry—it is all a sham!”
“I am, really,” said the boy. “Nobody sent me here; I never did any thing bad. Won’t you give me a piece of bread, and tell me what road this is?”
“He’s crazy!” said Betty, looking close into the boy’s eyes.
“No, I am not crazy. I—I—I don’t know the way home.”
“Where is your home?”
The boy hesitated, and hung his head.
“Tut, now, if you want your bread,” said Betty, growing more and more curious, snatching a fragment of a loaf, and holding it up before him—“if you want this now, tell me where you live?”
“In the city,” said the boy.
“Ten miles off! Did you walk all that?”
The boy nodded.
“Did your pa and ma know it?”
“No.”
“Come now, here’s another slice,” said Betty, “and I’ll put some butter on it, if you’ll tell me what you did it for?”
“I wanted to run away.”
“Goodness! What for? Did your folks treat you bad?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“I wanted to travel.”
“Ha—ha—ha—ha!” said Betty, holding on to her sides. “That’s too good—too good—and got tired a’ready—ha! ha!—and want to find the way home! Smart traveler you are! How do you expect to get back to-night? It is most sundown now.”
“I don’t know,” said the boy, sadly.
“Nor I,” said Betty. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll give you a supper and a bed to-night; and my man is going in to market at four o’clock to-morrow morning, with some vegetables; and he will give you a lift, if I ask him. How’ll that do?”
“Thank you,” said the boy; “but—”
“But?” said Betty. “Oh yes, you are thinking of what a pucker your pa and ma will be in about you, all night. Well, you should have thought of that afore you started. It can’t be helped now. I know my man won’t budge an inch before four o’clock in the morning; he’s just as sot as the everlasting hills. There he comes now. I guess he’ll wonder where I picked up you.”
“Halloo! Betty,” said Richard, rattling up to the door with his team. “What boy is that?”
“Why, Richard!”
“Why, Johnny!”
“What does all that mean?” said the astonished Betty, as the little boy flew into her husband’s arms. “What on earth does that mean? Did you ever see him before?”
“Well, I should think I had,” said Richard, “seeing that I have found his pa in vegetables all summer; and this boy, every blessed morning, has jumped on to my team for me to give him a lift on his way to school. Should r-a-t-h-e-r think I had seen him before, Betty; but how he came out here, that’s what I want to know—didn’t know as ever I told him where I lived.”
“You never did,” said Johnny. “I have been a bad boy, Richard—I ran away from home. I read books about boys that went off to see the world, and I thought it would be fun.”
“Well!” said Richard, laughing; “you are not the first fellow who has found out that bread and butter and money don’t grow on the bushes. Now I suppose you are quite ready for me to carry you back?”
“Yes,” said Johnny.
“Well, eat your supper, and then be off to bed, for I shall start before the hens are awake; and mind you tell your folks that I had no hand in your going off. It looks rather suspicious, you see—coming straight out to my house. Lucky you did not fall into worse hands; and, Betty, you might as well brush up his dirty shoes and take a little dust off his jacket and cap. I can always tell a boy that hasn’t seen his mother for four-and-twenty hours. Ah, Johnny, nothing like a mother. Don’t you be too proud, now, to ask her pardon for running off; you young scapegrace.”
“No I ain’t,” said Johnny.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Richard.
“I was thinking,” said Johnny, as he watched Betty dusting his jacket, “what a silly boy I was, and how I thought that one of these days every body would want to see the jacket and trowsers that the great traveler John Sims had on, when he first started on foot to go round the world.”
“Never mind that,” said Richard, laughing; “it will be a cheap suit of clothes for you, if it only teaches you that a good home is the best place for boys, and a good father and mother the very best of friends.”
“Wake up, wake up,” shouted Richard, shaking John by the shoulder the next morning, “my team is all harnessed, and at the door; and Betty has some smoking-hot coffee down stairs; wake up, Johnny, and we’ll get into town time enough to eat breakfast with your mother.”
Johnny jumped out of bed, and in his hurry, put his legs into the sleeves of his jacket: he was not used to dressing in the dark; the hot coffee was soon swallowed, and jumping into the market cart beside John, they rattled off by starlight down the road. Richard did not talk much, he was thinking how much money his turnips, and carrots, and beets, and parsnips, would bring him, so that Johnny had plenty of time to think. Every mile that brought them nearer to the city made him feel more and more what a naughty boy he had been, to distress such a good father and mother; so that he was quite ready when the market cart rattled over the paved streets of the city, and up to his father’s door, to say all that such a foolish boy should say, when his parents came out to meet him; nor did he get angry when “the fellows” joked him about his “long journey round the world.” And when they found he could laugh at his own folly, as well as they, they soon stopped teasing him. Johnny has some little boys of his own now, and when they begin to talk big, he always tells them the story of “John Sims, the famous traveler.”