Rockton. A story of springtime recreations

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Chapter I. An Unexpected Dive

i peash ! SPLASH!!

A little splash, instantly followed by the big splash.

“ Wow !” squeaked a voice, in a droll tone of dismay, out of the middle of the capitalized splash.

“ Con — .junctions !” it went on, changing to a pugnacious growl. “Just let me catch that chap!”

Then a boy, standing above his knees in the water of a bit of a pond, began wading towards the shore, looking around sharply, all the while to see if his mishap had any spectators. Apparently no living thing was near, except a catbird, that was flitting among some alders, and

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uttering a flat squawk at almost every jerk of its jaunty, mouse-colored body.

All this, including even the big splash, was but a Lilliputian tumult in this big world of ours; yet, after the nature of small things, it had in it the beginnings to several boys of what appeared to be “tall times,” and which they allowed afforded them “no end of fun.”

It was the afternoon of one of those warm days which sometimes gladden New England in the latter part of April, and which fill a boy’s heart with unbounded delight. Rockton was getting the full benefit of it, as it lay stretched below and around a long, rocky ridge, looking for all the world like the lazy body of a gigantic tramp basking in the sunshine. Out at the east was a cluster of houses answering well for the head of this imaginary Gulliver. Nearer, and under the ridge, the long, business portion of this great town formed his enormous body, with a broad street shooting out to the south for a left arm, while another, running in the opposite direction, wound like a bent right arm around the east end of the ridge to Northville village. To complete the illusion, for his legs there were two closely built and slightly diverging streets, pushed out from the body of the main village through the valley to the west.

The rocky ridge north of the central village is a long, liigli swell of land, not very abrupt in some portions. Having been used for the grazing of cattle in earlier years, it has always been known as Pond Pasture ; the first half of the name being due to the existence of a spring of very fair water, in a hollow under the clifflike south face of its ledgy crest, which little fountain, re-enforced by the melting snows and copious rains of March and April, is at that season broadened into a shallow pond at least one hundred feet long and fully half as wide.

The afternoon this story opens, Pond Pasture was not a pasture at all ; for the street, which has the whimsical appearance of the right arm of the reclining Rockton giant, having stretched around the ridge to its north slope, has grown into the enormous open hand of Northville, with twice as many streets as there were overgrown fingers on the hand of the son of Goliath of Gath. Besides, dwelling-houses have crept up and stuck themselves in all sorts of ways on the north slope, almost to the top. What is left was a fair pasture in a wet season, but has become only a big, rough common, waiting to be cut up into house-lots.

When the boy who made the big splash was wading out of the not very clear pond, he had reason to think no person was in sight. Reason, however, is frequently at fault, especially when

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it does not make allowance for unknown facts. If this boy could have looked through the ledge at the top of the ridge, where it is tilted and broken into fantastic shapes, he would have discovered a very observant fact, and, this too, within easy range of his aquatic mishap.

For more than an hour there had been a man sitting on the north side of the ledge, in a nook which, while it sheltered him from the southerly wind, at the same time allowed him the full benefit of the early afternoon sunshine. By bending forward he could look into the hollow which holds the little pond. He had been dividing his time between his newspaper and the view from his outlook, until his ear caught the sound of a voice. “All aboard for Brazil!’’ it shouted.

Peeping through a ragged crack in the ledge against which he was leaning, he saw a boy, who, having brought together from somewhere, a number of boards and pieces of timber, had made himself a raft, and, having with a rashness too common in boys, stripped off his shoes and stockings, was teaching himself a lesson in navigation. He evidently had given the names of different countries to various points on the shore, and was industriously poling his unwieldy craft from one to another across his mimic ocean. Just as he was midway in a voyage from Brazil

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ii to Africa, another boy, who had skulked over from one of the irregularly placed houses, and was watching him from behind a part of the ledge, picked up a stone, threw it, waited an instant to see the result, and then scuttled away as fast as his legs could carry him.

This stone made splash number one within a few feet of where the African voyager was pushing hard with his pole, causing him, as a matter of course, to tumble overboard, and make splash number two.

When he got fairly ashore, and had picked up his shoes and stockings, he muttered : “ I ’ll bet Jim Mears did it. I ’ll fix him, see ’f I don’t.” Then he scrambled round a point in the ledge, and stood staring sheepishly into the laughing, hazel eyes of the man who had been watching him, and who said:

“ Come here, Edward, out of the wind, and dry off in this hot sun.”

Doubtless some boys would have 11 cut and run but this sturdy lad, if he had been surprised into a cold bath by the splash of a stone, was no coward. Besides, what was there to be ashamed of? What he did do was first to laugh — a good, hearty, boyish laugh, that tilted up his rather puggisli nose, and opened wide a very sizable mouth, well filled with strong, white teeth — and then he sat down in the sun as he

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had been bidden. Anybody looking at him would know that he was nobody’s bad boy. He was about a dozen years old, and, as stoutish boys sometimes do, looked a little as if he had been stuffed into his clothes. His hair, though short-cropped, seemed inclined to curl, and his broad, good-humored face was well sprinkled with freckles, and lighted up by a pair of honest and fun-full blue eyes. He busied himself for a bit in wringing the water out of the bottoms of of his short trousers, and then asked :

“'How long, Mr. Armour, have you been here ?”

“ O, long enough for you to make a voyage to Brazil and half-way from there to Africa,” was the reply. “ You made me think of a friend of mine — a very good and witty man — who made a voyage to Africa. He was seasick nearly all the time, and when he was out in mid-ocean wrote me a letter in which he congratulated himself that he was only three or four miles from land.”

“ O my !” said Edward, “ he must have been awfully sick not to .know that Africa is n’t farther away than that.”

“How far away is it?” asked Mr. Armour.

“O, it is a big, big way off. I read something about Stanley and the Congo River in a paper, and I got father’s big Johnson’s Atlas,

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and Sarali measured it for me, and she said it must be ’most six thousand miles from New York to the mouth of the Congo.”

“No doubt Sarah was right,” said Mr. Armour; “but how far were you from the shore when you stepped off your raft?”

The fact that his father is a master mechanic and has built many houses in Rockton may have helped the lad, for he answered quite correctly.

“I guess about twenty-five feet.”

“ And I reckon by the looks of your pants that you found land by going about twenty-five inches. My friend didn’t say how far he was from Africa, but how far he would probably have to go to find land.”

“It would have been mighty wet when he got to it,” commented Edward.

“Exactly,” said Mr. Armour. “You found it so when you got to it.”

During this conversation the boy who had played the part of a catapult and then run away, had ventured out of his hiding-place, and was standing in the yard before the house.

“Hello! Churnpy!” he shouted; “what’s the matter?”

Edward jumped up and shouted back: “ Con — junctions !” — and got no farther, for Mr. Armour broke in with a “ ha ! ha!” which was full warrant for the strength of his lungs,

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and reaching out he pulled the boy back to his seat, and said: “Young man where did you pick up this new expletive?”

Edward grew rosy, but he answered stoutly:

“ Sarah says I have got an awful bad habit of using slang, and what she says are half-swear words. So she has been trying to break me of it.”

“Nice girl,” put in Mr. Armour. “I like her very much.”

“Yes, she is as nice as any boy’s sister. She’s kept at me till I have left off most of the words she does n’t like. I’m a little peppery, ’cos my hair is ’most red, I s’pose. When a chap gets started kind’er quick, you know, ‘ confound it ’ is the handiest thing he can say.”

“I know all about it,” said Mr. Armour, “for it was a trick of mine when a boy, and I did n’t have a sister to help me break myself of it, so I had a tough job. How does it happen that you spout con — junctions?”

“That’s just it,” answered Edward. “I told Sarah that ‘confound it ’ would come out in spite of everything. She told me that for awhile I had better try to put something else in the place of it, and — O ! Mr. Armour, when you were a boy, did n’t you hate grammar?”

The tall man’s hazel eyes seemed to be looking backwards through the years. He drew a long, deep breath, and then answered 111 a low, kind voice:

“To be frank, I think grammar was the study I understood the least, and disliked the most.’ >

“ That’s just me,” said Edward, as lie put on a comically doleful look. “I don’t understand the stuff one bit. I keep forgetting faster than I learn. Sarah had the awfulest time to get me to remember the parts of speech. I got them ’most all, but I stuck on conjunctions. I kept forgetting this so fast, I never should have remembered if she had n’t made me take the word to say in place of ‘confound it.’ It tickled me when I first tried it ; it sounded so funny. I guess that was what helped me to remember it. Anyhow when I got started with con — junctions came up real easy. So I’ve got rid of confound it, and have got hold of all the parts of speech.”

“Chumpy! Chumpy!” piped out the boy in the yard, “may I come over?”

“Isn’t this a new name for you, Edward?” asked Mr. Armour.

“ It’s what most of the boys call me,” he answered, and then explained :

“ When I was in Miss Barber’s division, she gave the boys words and had them hunt up definitions at home, and then called us out on the i6

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floor to give ’em. One day my word was ‘chump.’ I looked it up in the big dictionary, and thought I had it all right, and was going to answer : ‘ A short, thick, heavy piece of wood.’ There was a big, woolly caterpillar crawling up on Miss Barber’s shoulder. I was tickling all over inside thinking how she would jump an’ scream as soon as it touched her neck. When she said : ‘ Edward Holt, define chump.’ I was all flustered, and blundered out, ‘ Chump — A short thick, heavy boy.’ Then they screamed, Miss Barber and all ; and she sent me to my seat. Ever since they’ve called me ‘ Cliumpy.’”

“ I ’ve known greater misfits in the real names of people,” said Mr. Armour, as he laid his hand on Edward’s plump shoulder. “ I ’ve had many a hearty laugh over them.”

“Are there any in Rockton?” asked Edward.

“ I never was in a place where there were not,” was the reply. “ Down at the corner of Bridge and Mill Streets is a liquor-saloon. The man’s name who keeps it is True worthy,”

“That’s so,” put iu Edward, “and I read in the Rockton Argus that a fellow they call Truman was sent to jail for stealing.”

“ Good men, too, have misfit names,” continued Mr. Armour. “Who keeps the dry-goods store down by Northville church ?”

“ Why, Jabez Long, and he’s just the pudgiest, shortest man in town. But, 0 my! ain’t lie just good to us boys? and don’t we all like him?”

“You are right, my boy,” said Mr. Armour. “ He is a clear-headed, big-hearted Christian man, happy as a king all the time, and doing his best to make everybody good and happy. There is another good man who runs the barber-shop just beyond Mr. Tong’s. He is a black man, and his name is White. He is an upright man. He won’t open his shop, and he will go to church on the Lord’s-day, if all North ville goes down town to shave. He is one of the whitest men I know. So his name is no misfit.”

Just here “ Chumpy ” doubled up as much as his short, thick body would allow, and laughed until every seam in his jacket was put to a strain that threatened work for Sarah. At length he panted out :

“ O, Mr. Armour, have you seen the man who drives the red butclier’s-cart ? He ’s the tallest, lankiest chap that ever was. They say he is ’mostseven feet high, and he looks as though he never ate a bit of meat in his life! Father says that if he could hire half a dozen carpenters as tall as he is, he could get rich, for he would n’t have to build any staging when he puts up houses.

Mr. Armour joined in the laugh, for the boy’s description was hardly overdrawn. The man i8

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was very thin, and surprisingly tall. When he stood at the tail of his cart to wait on customers, his hat towered above its canvas top, and when he got into the front to ride, he appeared to draw himself in, and coil his long body away.

“ Do you know his name?” asked Edward. Mr. Armour shook his head, and he continued: “ Why, it’s Short! His other name is Robert, and so most people call him ‘ Bob Short.’ The boys call him ‘ Bobbed Short.’ ”

“ It is droll,” said Mr. Armour ; “but we must be careful and not make sport of people’s peculiarities or infirmities. I like fun — I judge some think I like it too well — but I do n’t like all kinds of fun. I must have mine of the clean, jolly, health-giving kind, that helps one to be brave and true to duty, and loving to others. To change the subject, what is this little fellow’s name who has been shouting to you until he has got tired of it, and is now sitting on the front steps looking more dejected than you did when you waded out of the pond ?”

“ That ’s Tim Mears — we call him Chippy.”

“Did Miss Barber tell him to define ‘Chip,’ and instead of answering ‘a small piece,’ did he say, ‘ a small boy?’ ”

“No, “replied Edward,- “I’m the only boy round here that ’s got what Sarah says is a

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lit’rary handle to my name. When Jim Mears was littler than he is now, some of the boys found him in his back-yard crying because his mother had sent him out to pick up a big lot of chips when he wanted to play. The boys took hold and helped him, and now they ’most always call him ‘Chippy.’”

“ Well, he does n’t appear very chipper just now,” said Mr. Armour. “ Why does n’t he come over with us if he wants to? Is he afraid of me?”

“ I s’pose he ’s afraid I ’ll pull his ears,” was the somewhat indirect answer.

“ Pull his ears ! What for?” questioned Mr. Armour. Without waiting for an answer he went on : “ You ought not to hurt him for a bit of a practical joke that taught you how much nearer you were to land than you thought. I do n’t think tricks of any sort are the brighest kind of sport; but if you play off jokes on others, you ought to expect they will pay you in kind. I reckon you have played many a prank to tease Chippy.”

Edward indulged in another “ chunky ” laugh, and said :

“ I guess I have. He sits in the seat in front of mine. T’other day he was studying his geography lesson like all possessed, for it was ’most time to recite. He ’s always leaving his things round anywhere. His slate was on

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the floor and I just made a slip-noose in the long string there was on it, and hitched it to his jacket. Just as I got it hitched, his class was called, and he started, and the slate started too. It whacked his heels and made him give a big jump, and that made it whack the desks. My! was n’t there a big clatter? and didn’t I expect to catch it ? But just as he turned round to see what was after him the noose slipped off, and Miss Barber said : ‘ Master Mears, I wish you would learn to leave your seat properly and not disturb the school by knocking things around in such a heedless way.’ My! I just hugged myself to think how slick I’d got out of the mess.”

“Of course Jim pulled your ears well for the trick the first time he caught you out of school,” said Mr. Armour.

“He didn’t dare to try that sort of job,” Edward replied.

“ Look here, young man,” said Mr. Armour, “I took you to be made of the right sort of stuff. I shall have to treat you to a lecture. The meanest thing in boy or man is meanness. You play a trick on a school-mate because he is n’t stout enough to punish you for it ; and then when he pays you off by another trick, you turn round and flog him because you are the biggest. Honor bright, now! Do you call it generous or manly?”

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“N-no,” answered the boy. He did not laugh. Sarah, had she been there, would have felt no fear of extra work from the bursting of the seams of his jacket.

The bright hazel eyes of Mr. Armour watched the sober face of the lad for a few moments; then he broke the silence:

“ There are kinds of fun a long way ahead of practical joking, and I believe in going for the best of everything. Remember this: If you are willing to give, you ought to be at the least equally willing to take. Now, my young friend, my lecture is done. Suppose you invite that other joker over, shake hands, and call it square.”

There was nothing pugnacious in the voice that shouted :

“ Hello, Chippy ! Come over, won’t you?”

Chippy was off the steps, through the gate and across the field “in a jiffy.”

Mr. Armour took him kindly by the hand, and Edward also offered his chubby hand, and said :

“All right, old man; I guess my ducking about pays for that slate racket.”

When Edward had put his stout legs into his stockings and laced up his shoes, the three stood talking together ; and looking down upon the little pond, Mr. Armour said :

“ When Edward went overboard in such a

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hurry, and I saw him paddling like a duck for the shore, I thought of a story I heard when a boy.”

Seeing the boys evidently expected the story, he went on :

“ A great, overgrown, awkward chap from away back somewhere, went to one of our big sea-ports, to see the ships and find out what he could about the sea. He had an immense longing to be a sailor, but had just as immense a fear of being hurt. He was so big, and appeared to be so strong, that several captains tried to induce him to ship for a voyage. But he did n’t like the idea of being far from land, and dreaded great storms. At length one captain told him that he intended every night to anchor so near the shore that he could sleep on the land if he preferred to, and that all the time he would keep so near the land that, if there should be a very hard storm, he could wade ashore. The bait took. He signed as a green hand, and went on board the ship. Of course the captain put straight out to sea. All was bright and smooth, and the first night he was told there was no use running round the shore when the weather was so fine. When they got well out of sight of land, a big storm came down, and it became very rough. The greenhorn was not only scared, but seasick. He went below, and would n’t show

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2 3 his head above the hatchway. The mate tried to drive him on deck, but failed. Then the captain went below, and found the fellow bellowing like a calf. He tried to reason with him, and make him understand that he was in no danger. Greeny would n’t be pacified, and flung in the captain’s face his promise that he would not go so far away from land that he could not wade ashore. On this the captain told him there was nothing under the heavens to prevent his wading ashore if he wished to. ‘All youv’e got to do,’ he said, ‘ is to go on deck and start for the shore.’ This was too much for the poor, scared, seasick fellow, and he started up and blubbered : ‘ Y-you plaguey old fool ! Do

you suppose I’m ten miles tall ?’ ”

“ I’d like to go to sea,” said Chippy, after his laugh at the story was over.

“ Pray tell us what for ?” asked Mr. Armour.

“O, for fun,” was the reply.

“Just what I expected you to say,” said his questioner. “ Now, boys, just pack this away in your noddles so you will never forget it. If you do anything just for fun, you will be disappointed every time. Now, Edward, tell what set you to paddling round on that pond?”

Edward looked up into the tall man’s eyes. Something he saw there gave him a feeling of confidence, and he answered : “ I wanted to go

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into the woods this afternoon, but mother said she might want me at home, and I came out here to play where I could hear the bell which Sarah said she would ring when mother was ready to send me on an errand. I called that place there a cave and played hunter for a while, and then I thought I’d make a ship and be a sailor, and I tried to remember the names of the countries we study about — ”

“ Ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling!” broke in the bell, stopping the boy short in the middle of a sentence.

Mr. Armour took each lad by the shoulder and turned him around till he faced to the north. Then he said:

“ Look all around. As far as you can see are hills and woods. What a splendid country to tramp over! I am a genuine tramp, and I like some kinds of boys. How would it do for you two, and perhaps some more, to join me in a few excursions?”

“ Can’t we go next Wednesday?” asked the instantly excited Chutnpy.

“Please let’s go next Wednesday ?” echoed Chippy.

“ I think we won’t go so soon,” replied Mr. Armour. “ I am a bit like John Wesley who said: ‘ I am always in haste, but nevei in a hurry.’ If you two will meet me here Wednesday after-

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noon at half-past one, provided your parents are willing, you may each bring another honest, jolly, stout boy, as old or even older than yourselves, and we will talk things over then, and see what will come of it. I am afraid that bell will ring again. Now scamper.”

And away they scampered. Shortly after, Mr. Armour walked slowly down into Nortliville.

Chapter II. The Quartet Appears

]\J EARLY every Church in Rockton has a clock on its tower. As Northville thinks itself the very finest portion of the town, as a matter of course, it regulates its hightoned daily routine by a clock in the tower A of the spick-span new church, which is its latest pride. Many church clocks are like the famous time-keeper that Mr. Gough -used to tell about to his audiences, of which the owner affirmed : “ When the hands point to a quarter past two it strikes nine, and then I know it is just twenty- seven minutes past five.” It deserves to be here recorded that Northville is justly proud of its clock, for it is reliable.

Hardly had the last stroke died away with which it proclaimed the noon of Wednesday, when there came the sound of many feet from within the great square school -house on the next street. Immediately a stream of young life poured out of its wide door-way, and overflowed its ample play-ground.

Almost the first boy out was James Mears. He posted himself just at the edge of the noisy current, and waited for Edward Holt, when the two held an earnest consultation. As parties of boys started dinnerward, there were calls : “Come on, Chumpy !” and “ Hurry up, Chippy !” but without success. As a laggard came through the door, James said : “ There comes Bun.

I’ll freeze to him !” This Arctic purpose he proceeded to execute by seizing a boy fast by the arm. Meanwhile Miss Barber was coming down the steps with a tall, quiet-mannered, fine-faced boy beside her, who appeared to be some thirteen years old, or thereabouts. Edward said :

“Come along, Dolly Grant. We want to talk with you. Something’s up.”

And then these four boys walked up the street, James and Edward explaining something to their mates with great volubility. It could not have been much past one when Edward Holt made his appearance on the ledge in Pond Pasture, where almost immediately he was joined by James Mears, who, out of breath with running, panted :

“ M-my but didn’t I almost miss it?”

“ What got in your way ?” Edward asked.

“Why, I just got in my own way,” answered

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James. “ I’m awful careless, mother says. I ’m ’fraid it’s true. I was in such a big hurry to get my dinner that when I went into the house I did n’t see baby. He had pulled himself up beside a chair. I blundered against it, and over he went with a squall loud enough to scare a fellow out of a year’s growth. ’Course I did n’t mean to hurt him. Mother, she just scolded, and said if she did her duty she would have to keep me in the whole afternoon. Crackey ! that just scared me worse than baby’s yelling. But I got her to let me hold the youngster, and in a little while I rocked him to sleep. Then mother put him in his crib, and told me to eat my dinner. Didn’t I hurry! When I was done, she told me I might come over and see Mr. Armour, but must come back when he was done with me.”

“ I was in a hurry for my dinner, too,” said Edward. “ Father had some work to look after down town that made him late, and I was ’fraid I ’d miss it. After he asked the blessing:, I stuffed as fast as I could. They all laughed at me. Sarah said I was an illustration of the theory of ev — everlution, and was only partly everluted from an Anerconder, for I was swallowing my food whole. Father said I was like Mrs. Partingtpn’s Ike, and had a great verloserty ol appetite. Mother said she was glad I was going to see Mr. Armour ; but if I choked myself eating, I would miss the fun.”