The Court of Boyville by William Allen White
W >>
William Allen White >> The Court of Boyville
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 12377-h.htm or 12377-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/3/7/12377/12377-h/12377-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/3/7/12377/12377-h.zip)
THE COURT OF BOYVILLE
By
William Allen White
Author Of The Real Issue, etc.
Illustrated by ORSON LOWELL (with the exception of the first story,
the illustrations for which are by GUSTAV VERBEEK).
1898
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES
A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"
JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON
MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"
Where is Boyville? By what track
May we trace our journey back;
Up what mountains, thro' what seas
By what meadow-lands and leas,
Must we travel to the bourne
Of the shady rows of corn
That lead down to the Willows
Where the day is always morn?
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Say, boys, where's its bottle?"
The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a piece of rope
He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water
He felt his father's finger under his collar and his own feet shambling
Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an arm
His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin
His luck was bad
He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the barn
As she turned to her turkey-slicing
The new preacher, for whom the party was made
The first long dress
"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still"
"Did you know my dad was a soldier?"
During the next two hours the boy wandered on the prairie
"Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten days"
Piggy went to get his flying hat
She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him
Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds
Chased the little girls around the yard with it
She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her
during the opening hour
Harold Jones
To study his tastes
... The comradeship ... was beautiful to see
The red-headed Pratt girl
He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and listen to his
Heart's Desire
Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing piles
He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be
brought forward
... fought boys who were three classes above him ... whipped groups of
boys of assorted sizes
Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle
Her son ate rapidly in silence
His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of it to the
mothers of other boys
A little maid in a black-and-red check
Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair
It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph
album
At this important bit of repartee
His heart was full of bitterness
Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish
A crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a sneaker
James
Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter
The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby
Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that
she was no longer the baby
His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that
filled the boy with shame
He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart
was glad
He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into
an agonized knot
"Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the
eye"
"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me"
An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his
hair
"Got anything here fit to eat?"
"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for?"
She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked at her lips
Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and
down the alley
Mammoth Consolidated Shows
Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry
How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman
Brother Baker--a tiptoeing Nemesis
Dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets, hurrying
their seniors
The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving
his wares in a red and blue trail behind him
The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her
Beau's hat
"One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you saw him"
"It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once?"
8 Funny Clowns--count them 8
"Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick"
The other wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repairs
When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and
laughed till he shook all over
"Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy"
"Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash
again"
"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule ... I thought it
would be nice for the missionary society"
"Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we"
PROLOGUE
We who are passing "through the wilderness of this world" find it
difficult to realize what an impenetrable wall there is around
the town of Boyville. Storm it as we may with the simulation of
light-heartedness, bombard it with our heavy guns, loaded with
fishing-hooks and golf-sticks, and skates and base-balls, and
butterfly-nets, the walls remain. If once the clanging gates of the
town shut upon a youth, he is banished forever. From afar he may peer
over the walls at the games inside, but he may not be of them. Let him
try to join them, and lo, the games become a mockery, and he finds
that he is cavorting still outside the walls, while the good citizens
inside are making sly sport of him. Who, being recently banished from
Boyville, has not sought to return? In vain does he haunt the swimming
hole; the water elves will have none of him. He hushes their laughter,
muffles their calls, takes the essence from their fun, and leaves it
dust upon their lips.
But we of the race of grown-ups are a purblind people. Otherwise,
when we acknowledge what a stronghold this Boyville is, we the
banished would not seek to steal away the merry townsmen, and bruise
our hearts and theirs at our hopeless task. We have learned many
things in our schools, and of the making of books there has been no
end; so it is odd that we have not learned to let a boy be a boy. Why
not let him feel the thrill from the fresh spring grass under his
feet, as his father felt it before him, and his father's father, even
back to Adam, who walked thus with God! There is a tincture of iron
that seeps into a boys blood with the ozone of the earth, that can
come to him by no other way. Let him run if he will; Heavens air is a
better elixir than any that the alchemist can mix. What if he roams
the woods and lives for hours in the water? What if he prefers the
barn to the parlor? What if he fights? Does he not take the risk of
the scratched face and the bruises? Should he not be in some measure
the judge of the situation before him when the trouble begins? Boys
have an ugly name for one of their kind who discovers suddenly, in a
crisis of his own making, that he is not allowed to fight. And it were
better to see a boy with a dozen claw-marks down his face than to see
him eat that name in peace.
Now this conclusion may seem barbaric to elders who have to pay for
new clothes to replace the torn ones, And according to their light
perhaps the elders see clearly. But the grown-up people forget that
their wisdom has impaired their vision to see as boys see and to pass
judgment upon things in another sphere.
For Boyville is a Free Town in the monarchy of the world. Its
citizens mind their own business, and they desire travellers in this
waste to do likewise. The notion that spectacled gentry should come
nosing through the streets and alleys of Boyville, studying
the sanitation, which is not of the best, and objecting to the
constitution and by laws,--which were made when the rivers were dug
and the hills piled up,--the notion of an outsider interfering with
the Divine right of boys to eat what they please, to believe what they
please, and, under loyalty to the monarchy of the world, to do what
they please, is repugnant to this free people. Nor does it better
matters when the man behind the spectacles explains that to eat
sheep-sorrel is deleterious; to feed younkers Indian turnip is cruel;
to suck the sap of the young grapevine in spring produces malaria; to
smoke rattan is depraving, and to stuff one's stomach with paw-paws
and wild-grapes is dangerous in the extreme.
For does not the first article of the law of this Free Town expressly
state, that boys shall be absolved from obeying any and all laws
regulating the human stomach, and be free of the penalties thereto
attaching? And again when Wisdom says that the boy shall give up his
superstitions, the boy points to hoary tradition, which says that the
snakes tail does not in fact and in truth die till sundown; that if
a boy kills a lucky bug he shall find a nickel; that to cross one's
heart and lie, brings on swift and horrible retribution; that letting
the old cat die causes death in the family; that to kill a toad makes
the cow give bloody milk; that horsehairs in water turn to snakes in
nine days; that spitting on the bait pleases the fish, and that to
draw a circle in the dust around a marble charms it against being hit.
What tradition, ancient and honorable in Boyville, declares is true,
that is the Law everlasting, and no wise mans word shall change the
law one jot nor one tittle. For in the beginning it was written, to
get in the night wood, to eat with a fork at table, to wear shoes on
Sunday, to say "sir" to company, and "thank you" to the lady, to go to
bed at nine to remember that there are others who like gravy, to stay
out of the water in dog days, to come right straight home from school,
to shinny on your own side, and to clean those feet for Heaven's
sake,--that is the whole duty of boys. As it was in the beginning, so
it shall be ever after.
Now most of us grown-ups do not admit these things, and not being
able to speak the language of the people whose rights we are
seeking to destroy, we will never know how utterly futile are our
conspiracies. But that is immaterial.
The main point that the gentle reader should bear in mind is this:
The town of Boyville is free and independent; governed only by the
ancient laws, made by the boys of the elder days--by the boys who
found bottom in the rivers that flowed out of Eden; by little Seth,
little Enoch, little Methuselah, and little Noah; by the boys who
threw mud balls from willow withes broken from trees whereon David
hung his harp a thousand years thereafter. For Boyville was old when
Nineveh was a frontier post.
Boyville hears from afar the buzz about principalities and powers,
the clatter of javelins and the clash of arms, the hubbub of the
"Pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war." The courtiers of
Boyville cheer for each new hero, and claim fellowship with all "like
gentlemen unafraid." But the Free Town has its own sovereign, makes
its own idols. And the clatter and clash and hubbub that attend the
triumphs of the kingdoms of the earth pass by unconquered Boyville as
the shadow of a dream.
THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES
A WAIL IN B MINOR
Oh, what has become of the ornery boy,
Who used to chew slip'ry elm, "rosum" and wheat:
And say "jest a coddin'" and "what d'ye soy;"
And wear rolled-up trousers all out at the seat?
And where is the boy who had shows in the barn,
And "skinned a cat backards" and turned "summersets;"
The boy who had faith in a snake-feeder yarn,
And always smoked grape vine and corn cigarettes?
Where now is the small boy who spat on his bait,
And proudly stood down near the foot of the class,
And always went "barefooted" early and late,
And washed his feet nights on the dew of the grass?
Where is the boy who could swim on his back,
And dive and tread water and lay his hair, too;
The boy who would jump off the spring-board ker-whack,
And light on his stomach as I used to do?
Oh where and oh where is the old-fashioned boy?
Has the old-fashioned boy with his old-fashioned ways,
Been crowded aside by the Lord Fauntleroy,--
The cheap tinselled make-believe, full of alloy
Without the pure gold of the rollicking joy
Of the old-fashioned boy in the old-fashioned days?
[Illustration: The Court of Boyville
The Martyrdom of Mealy Jones]
His mother named him Harold, and named him better than she knew. He
was just such a boy as one would expect to see bearing a heroic name.
He had big, faded blue eyes, a nubbin of a chin, wide, wondering ears,
and freckles--such brown blotches of freckles on his face and neck and
hands, such a milky way of them across the bridge of his snub nose,
that the boys called him "Mealy." And Mealy Jones it was to the end.
When his parents called him Harold in the hearing of his playmates,
the boy was ashamed, for he felt that a nickname gave him equal
standing among his fellows. There were times in his life--when he
was alone, recounting his valorous deeds--that Mealy more than half
persuaded himself that he was a real boy. But when he was with
Winfield Pennington, surnamed "Piggy" in the court of Boyville, and
Abraham Lincoln Carpenter, similarly knighted "Old Abe," Mealy saw
that he was only Harold, a weak and unsatisfactory imitation. He was
handicapped in his struggle to be a natural boy by a mother who had
been a "perfect little lady" in her girlhood and who was moulding her
son in the forms that fashioned her. If it were the purpose of this
tale to deal in philosophy, it would be easy to digress and show that
Mealy Jones was a study in heredity; that from his mother's side of
the house he inherited wide, white, starched collars, and from his
father's side, a burning desire to spit through his teeth. But this is
only a simple tale, with no great problem in it, save that of a boy
working out his salvation between a fiendish lust for suspenders
with trousers and a long-termed incarceration in ruffled waists with
despised white china buttons around his waist-band.
No one but Piggy ever knew how Mealy Jones learned to swim; and
Harold's mother doesn't consider Piggy Pennington any one, for the
Penningtons are Methodists and the Joneses are Baptists, and Very
hard-shelled ones, too. However, Mealy Jones did learn to swim
"dog-fashion" years and years after the others had become
post-graduates in aquatic lore and could "tread water," "swim
sailor-fashion," and "lay" their hair. Mrs. Jones permitted her son
to go swimming occasionally, but she always exacted from him a solemn
promise not to go into the deep water. And Harold, who was a good
little boy, made it a point not to "let down" when he was beyond the
"step-off." So of course he could not know how deep it was; although
the bad little boys who "brought up bottom" had told him that it was
twelve feet deep.
One hot June afternoon Mealy stood looking at a druggist's display
window, gazing idly at the pills, absently picking out the various
kinds which he had taken. He had just come from his mother with
the expressed injunction not to go near the river. His eyes roamed
listlessly from the pills to the pain-killer, and; turning wearily
away, he saw Piggy and Old Abe and Jimmy Sears. The three boys were
scuffling for, the possession of a piece of rope. Pausing a moment in
front of the grocery store, they beckoned for Mealy. The lad joined
the group. Some one said,--
"Come on, Mealy, and go swimmin'."
"Aw, Mealy can't go," put in Jimmy; "his ma won't let him."
"Yes, I kin, _too_, if I want to," replied Mealy, stoutly--but, alas!
guiltily.
"Then come on," said Piggy Pennington. "You don't dast. My ma don't
care how often I go in--only in dog days."
[Illustration: _The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a
piece of rope_.]
After some desultory debate they started--the four boys--pushing one
another off the sidewalk, "rooster-fighting," shouting, laughing,
racing through the streets. Mealy Jones longed to have the other boys
observe his savage behavior. He knew, however, that he was not of
them, that he was a sad make-believe. The guilt of the deed he was
doing, oppressed him. He wondered how he could go into crime so
stolidly. Inwardly he quaked as he recalled the stories he had read of
boys who had drowned while disobeying their parents. His uneasiness
was increased by the ever-present sense that he could not cope with
the other boys at their sports. He let them jostle him, and often
would run, after his self-respect would goad him to jostle back. Mealy
was glad when the group came to the deep shade of the woods and walked
slowly.
It was three o'clock when the boys reached the swimming-hole. There
the great elm-tree, with its ladder of exposed roots, stretched over
the water. Piggy Pennington, stripped to the skin, ran whooping down
the sloping bank, splashed over the gravel at the water's edge, and
plunged into the deepest water. Old Abe followed cautiously, bathing
his temples and his wrists before sousing all over. Jimmy Sears threw
his shirt high up on the bank as he stood ankle-deep in the stream.
Piggy's exhilaration having worn off by this time, he picked up a
mussel-shell and threw it at Jimmy's feet. The water dashed wide of
its mark and sprinkled Mealy, who was sitting on a log, taking off his
shoes.
"Here, Piggy, you quit that," said Mealy.
Jimmy said nothing. He sprang into the air head foremost toward Piggy,
who dived from sight. His pursuer saw the direction Piggy took and
followed him. The boys were a few feet apart when Jimmy came to the
surface, puffing and spouting and shaking the water from his eyes and
hair. He hesitated in his pursuit. Piggy observed the hesitation, and
with a quick overhand movement shot a stinging stream of water from
the ball of his hand into his antagonist's face. Then Piggy turned
on his side and swam swiftly to shallow water, where he stood and
splashed his victim, who was lumbering toward shore with his eyes
shut, panting loudly. With every splash Piggy said, "How's that, Jim?"
or "Take a bite o' this," or "Want a drink?" When Jimmy got where he
could walk on the creek bottom, he made a feint of fighting back,
but he soon ceased, and stood by, gasping for breath, before saying,
"Let's quit."
Then followed the fun of ducking, the scuffling and the capers of the
young human animals at play--at play even as gods in the elder days.
Mealy saw it all through envious eyes and with a pricking conscience,
as he doggedly fumbled the myriad buttons which his mother had
fastened upon his pretty clothes. He heard Piggy dare Abe across the
creek, and call him a cowardly calf, and say, "Any one't 'ull take a
dare'll steal sheep." Mealy saw Jimmy grin as he cracked rocks under
water while the other boys were diving, and watched Old Abe, as
he made the waves rise under his chin, swimming after the fleeing
culprit. He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water until
Mealy's smile faded to a horrified grin. Then he saw the victim and
the victor come merrily to the shallows, laughing as though nothing
unusual had occurred. It was high revel in Boyville, and the satyrs
were in the midst of their joy.
[Illustration: _He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under
water_.]
Then Mealy heard Piggy say, "Aw, come in, Mealy; it won't hurt you."
"Is it cold?" asked Mealy.
"Naw," replied Piggy.
"Naw, course it ain't," returned Jimmy.
"Warm as dish-water," cried Abe.
Mealy's ribs shone through his skin. His big milky eyes made him seem
uncanny, standing there shivering in the shade. He hobbled down the
pebbly bank on his tender feet, his bashful grin breaking into a dozen
contortions of pain as he went. The boys stood watching him like
tigers awaiting a Christian martyr. He paused at the water's edge, put
in a toe and jerked it out with a spasm of cold.
"Aw, that ain't cold," said Piggy.
"Naw, when you get in you won't mind it," insisted Abe.
Mealy replied, "Oo, oo! I think that's pretty cold."
"Wet your legs and you won't get the cramp," advised Jimmy Sears.
Mealy stooped over to scoop up some water in his hands. He heard the
boys laugh, and the next instant felt a shower of water on his back.
It made the tears come.
"Uhm-m-m--no fair splashin'," he whined.
Mealy put one foot in the water and drew it out quickly, gasping, "Oo!
I ain't goin' in. It's too cold for me. It'll bring my measles out."
He started--trembling--up the bank; then he heard a splashing behind
him.
"Come back here," cried Piggy, whose hands were uplifted; "come back
here and git in this water or I'll muddy you." Piggy's hands were full
of mud. He was about to throw it when the Jones boy pretended to laugh
and giggled, "Oh, I was just a-foolin'."
But he paused again at the water's edge, and Piggy, who had come up
close enough to touch the rickety lad, reached out a muddy hand and
dabbed the quaking boy's breast. The other boys roared with glee.
Mealy extended a deprecatory hand, and took Piggy's wet, glistening
arm and stumbled nervously into the stream, with an "Oo-oo!" at every
uncertain step. When the water came to Mealy's waist Abe cried, "Duck!
duck, or I'll splash you!" The boy sank down, with his teeth biting
his tongue as he said, "Oo! I wouldn't do you that way."
When the shock of the tepid water had spent itself, Mealy's grin
returned, and he shivered happily, "Oo--it's good, ain't it?"
Ten minutes later the boys were diving from the roots of the elm-tree
into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten minutes after
that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by
splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys
for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves
with coats of mud, adorned--one with stripes made with the point of a
stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with
snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path
to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it
came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted arms
like the barbarian warriors which they fancied they were. They swam up
the stream leisurely, and, as they rounded the bend that brought their
landing-place into view, the quick eye of Piggy Pennington saw that
some one had been meddling with their clothes. He gave the alarm. The
boys quickened their strokes. When they came to the shallows of the
ford they saw the blue-and-white starched shirt of Mealy Jones lying
in a pool tied into half a dozen knots, with the water soaking them
tighter and tighter. The other boys' clothes were not disturbed.
"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other boys
echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up people, but
there is never a moment in after-life more poignant with grief than,
that which stabs a boy when he learns that he must wrestle with a
series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As Mealy sat in the broiling
sun, gripping the knots with his teeth and fingers, he asked himself
again and again how he could explain his soiled shirt to his mother.
Lump after lump rose in his throat, and dissolved into tears that
trickled down his nose. The other boys did not heed him. They were
following Piggy's dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging
limb of the elm-tree.
They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham shirt, blue
overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone back of Mealy,
smiling complacently. Not until the stranger walked down to the
water's edge where Mealy sat did the other boys spy him.
"Who is it?" asked Abe.
"I never saw him before," replied Jimmy Sears.
"Oh, I'll tell you who it is," returned Abe, after looking the
stranger over. "It's the new boy. Him an' his old man come to town
yesterday. They say he's a fighter. He licked every boy in the
Mountain Jumpers this mornin'."
By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, "How you
gittin' along?"
Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled child, "Hush
your mouth, you old smartie! What good d't do you to go an' tie my
clo'es?"
Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing. They heard the
new boy retort, "Who said I tied your clo'es?" Mealy made no reply.
The new boy repeated the query. Mealy saw the boys in the water
looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in the primary
department of life, and had not yet learned that one must fight alone.
He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the "I," as he tugged at the
last knot. The new boy had been looking Mealy over, and he replied
quickly, "You're a liar!"
There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for some one
to defend him. He was sure that his companions would not stand there
and see him whipped. One of the boys in the water said diplomatically,
"Aw, Mealy, I wouldn't take that!"
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7