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A short story by James Whitcomb Riley |
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The Judkins Papers |
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Title: The Judkins Papers Author: James Whitcomb Riley [More Titles by Riley] FATHER AND SON Mr. Judkins' boy came home yesterday with a bottle of bugs in his pocket, and as the quiet little fellow sat on the back porch in his favorite position, his legs elbowed and flattened out beneath him like a letter "W," his genial and eccentric father came suddenly upon him. "And what's the blame' boy up to now?" said Mr. Judkins, in an assumed tone of querulous displeasure, as he bent over the boy from behind and gently tweaked his ear. "Oh, here, mister!" said the boy, without looking up; "you thist let up on that, will you!" "What you got there, I tell you!" continued the smiling Mr. Judkins, in a still gruffer tone, relinquishing the boy's ear, and gazing down upon the fluffy towhead with more than ordinary admiration. "What you got there?" "Bugs," said the boy--"you know!" "Dead, are they?" said Mr. Judkins. "Some of 'em's dead," said the boy, carefully running a needle through the back of a large bumblebee. "All these uns is, you kin bet! You don't think a feller 'ud try to string a live bumblebee, I reckon?" "Well, no, 'Squire," said Mr. Judkins, airily, addressing the boy by one of the dozen nicknames he had given him; "not a live bumblebee--a real stem-winder, of course not. But what in the name o' limpin' Lazarus air you stringin' 'em fer?" "Got a live snake-feeder," said the boy, ignoring the parental inquiry. "See him down there in the bottom, 'ith all th' other uns on top of him. Thist watch him now, an' you kin see him pant. I kin. Yes, an' I got a beetle 'at's purt' nigh alive, too--on'y he can't pull in his other wings. See 'em?" continued the boy, with growing enthusiasm, twirling the big-mouthed bottle like a kaleidoscope. "Hate beetles! 'cause they allus act so big, an' make s'much fuss about theirselves, an' don't know nothin' neither! Bet ef I had as many wings as a beetle I wouldn't let no boy my size knock the stuffin' out o' me with no bunch o' weeds, like I done him!" "Howd'ye know you wouldn't?" said Mr. Judkins, austerely, biting his nails and winking archly to himself. "W'y, I know I wouldn't," said the boy, "'cause I'd keep up in the air where I could fly, an' wouldn't come low down ut all--bumpin' around 'mongst them bushes, an' buzzin' against things, an' buttin' my brains out a-tryin' to git thue fence cracks." "'Spect you'd ruther be a snake-feeder, wouldn't you, Bud?" said Mr. Judkins suggestively. "Snake-feeders has got about enough wings to suit you, ef you want more'n one pair, and ever' day's a picnic with a snake-feeder, you know. Nothin' to do but jes' loaf up and down the crick, and roost on reeds and cat-tails, er fool around a feller's fish-line and light on the cork and bob up and down with it till she goes clean under, don't you know?" "Don't want to be no snake-feeder, neither," said the boy, "'cause they gits gobbled up, first thing they know, by these 'ere big green bullfrogs ut they can't ever tell from the skum till they've lit right in their mouth--and then they're goners! No, sir;" continued the boy, drawing an extra quinine-bottle from another pocket, and holding it up admiringly before his father's eyes: "There's the feller in there ut I'd ruther be than have a pony!" "W'y, it's a nasty p'izen spider!" exclaimed Mr. Judkins, pushing back the bottle with affected abhorrence, "and he's alive, too!" "You bet he's alive!" said the boy, "an' you kin bet he'll never come to no harm while I own him!" and as the little fellow spoke his face glowed with positive affection, and the twinkle of his eyes, as he continued, seemed wonderfully like his father's own. "Tell you, I like spiders! Spiders is awful fat--all but their head--and that's level, you kin bet! Flies hain't got no business with a spider. Ef a spider ever reaches fer a fly, he's his meat! The spider, he likes to loaf an' lay around in the shade an' wait fer flies an' bugs an' things to come a-foolin' round his place. He lays back in the hole in the corner of his web, an' waits till somepin' lights on it an' nen when he hears 'em buzzin', he thist crawls out an' fixes 'em so's they can't buzz, an' he's got the truck to do it with! I bet ef you'd unwind all the web-stuff out of thist one little spider not bigger'n a pill, it 'ud be long enough fer a kite-string! Onc't they wuz one in our wood-house, an' a taterbug got stuck in his web, an' the spider worked purt' nigh two days 'fore he got him so's he couldn't move. Nen he couldn't eat him neither--'cause they's shells on 'em, you know, an' the spider didn't know how to hull him. Ever' time I'd go there the spider, he'd be a-wrappin' more stuff around th' ole bug, an' stoopin' down like he wuz a-whisperin' to him. An' one day I went in ag'in, an' he was a-hangin', alas an' cold in death! An' I poked him with a splinter an' his web broke off--'spect he'd used it all up on the wicked bug--an' it killed him; an' I buried him in a' ink-bottle an' mashed the old bug 'ith a chip!" "Yes," said Judkins, in a horrified tone, turning away to conceal the real zest and enjoyment his face must have betrayed; "yes, and some day you'll come home p'izened, er somepin'! And I want to say right here, my young man, ef ever you do, and it don't kill you, I'll lint you within an inch of your life!" And as the eccentric Mr. Judkins whirled around the corner of the porch he heard the boy murmur in his low, absent-minded way, "Yes, you will!"
Judkins stopped us in front of the post-office yesterday to say that that boy of his was "the blamedest boy outside o' the annals o' history!" "Talk about this boy-naturalist out here at Indianapolis," says Judkins,--"w'y, he ain't nowhere to my boy! The little cuss don't do nothin' either only set around and look sleepy, and dern him, he gits off more dry things than you could print in your paper. Of late he's been a-displayin' a sort o' weakness fer Nature, don't you know; and he's allus got a bottle o' bugs in his pocket. He come home yesterday evening with a blame' mud-turtle as big as an unabridged dictionary, and turned him over in the back yard and commenced biffin' away at him with a hammer and a cold-chisel. 'W'y, you're a-killin' the turtle,' says I. 'Kill nothin'!' says he, 'I'm thist a-takin' the lid off so's I can see his clock works.' Hoomh!" says Judkins: "He's a good one!--only," he added, "I wouldn't have the boy think so fer the world!"
The mud-turtle is not a beast of pray, but he dearly loves catfish bait. If a mud-turtle gits your big toe in his mouth he will hang on till it thunders. Then he will spit it out like he was disgusted. The mud-turtle kin swim and keep his chin out of water ef he wants to but he don't care ef he does sink. The turtle kin stay under water until his next birthday, an' never crack a smile. He kin breathe like a grown person, but he don't haf to, on'y when he is on dry land, an' then I guess he thist does it to be soshibul. Allus when you see bubbles a-comin' up in the swimmin' hole, you kin bet your galluses they's a mud-turtle a-layin' down there, studyin' up some cheap way to git his dinner. Mud-turtles never dies, on'y when they make soup out of 'em. They is seven kinds of meat in the turtle, but I'd ruther eat thist plain burnt liver.
Frogs is the people's friend, but they can't fly. Onc't they wuz tadpoles about as big as lickerish drops, an' after while legs growed on 'em. Oh, let us love the frog--he looks so sorry. Frogs kin swim better'n little boys, and they don't haf to hold their nose when they dive, neither. Onc't I had a pet frog; an' the cars run over him. It thist squshed him. Bet he never knowed what hurt him! Onc't they wuz a rich lady swallered one--when he wuz little, you know; an' he growed up in her, an' it didn't kill him ut all. An' you could hear him holler in her bosom. It was a tree-toad; and so ever' time he'd go p-r-r-r-r- w'y, nen the grand lady she'd know it was goin' to rain, an' make her little boy run an' putt the tub under the spout. Wasn't that a b'utiful frog?
Piruts is reckless to a fault. They ain't afeard of nobody ner nothin'. Ef ever you insult a pirut onc't, he'll foller you to the grave but what he will revenge his wrongs. Piruts all looks like pictures of "Buffalo Bill"--on'y they don't shave off the whiskers that sticks out over the collar of their low-necked shirt. Ever' day is a picknick fer the piruts of the high seas. They eat gunpowder an' drink blood to make 'em savage, and then they kill people all day, an' set up all night an' tell ghost stories an' sing songs such as mortal ear would quail to listen to. Piruts never comes on shore on'y when they run out of tobacker; an' then it's a cold day ef they don't land at midnight, an' disguize theirselves an' slip up in town like a sleuth houn', so's the Grand Jury can't git on to 'em. They don't care fer the police any more than us people who dwells right in their midst. Piruts makes big wages an' spends it like a king. "Come easy, go easy," is the fatal watchword of them whose deeds is Deth. Onc't they wuz a pirut turned out of the house an' home by his cruel parents when he wuz but a kid, an' so he always went by that name. He was thrust adrift without a nickel, an' sailed fer distant shores to hide his shame fer those he loved. In the dead of night he stol'd a new suit of the captain's clothes. An' when he growed up big enough to fit 'em, he gaily dressed hissef and went up an' paced the quarter-deck in deep thought. He had not fergot how the captain onc't had lashed him to the jib-boom-poop an' whipped him. That stung his proud spirit even then; an' so the first thing he done was to slip up behind the cruel officer an' push him over-board. Then the ship wuz his fer better er fer worse. An' so he took command, an' hung high upon the beetling mast the pirut flag. Then he took the Bible his old mother give him, an' tied a darnic round it an' sunk it in the sand with a mocking laugh. Then it wuz that he wuz ready fer the pirut's wild seafaring life. He worked the business fer all they wuz in it fer many years, but wuz run in ut last. An', standin' on the gallus-tree, he sung a song which wuz all wrote off by hissef. An' then they knocked the trap on him. An' thus the brave man died and never made a kick. In life he wuz allus careful with his means, an' saved up vast welth, which he dug holes and buried, an' died with the secret locked in his bosom to this day.
Hackmens has the softest thing in the bizness. They hain't got nothin' to do but look hump-shouldered an' chaw tobacker an' wait. Hackmens all looks like detectives, an' keeps still, an' never even spits when you walk past 'em. An' they're allus cold. A hackman that stands high in the p'fession kin wear a overcoat in dog-days an' then look chilly an' like his folks wuz all dead but the old man, an' he wuz a drunkard. Ef a hackman would on'y be a blind fiddler he'd take in more money than a fair-ground. Hackmens never gives nothin' away. You kin trust a hackman when you can't trust your own mother. Some people thinks when they hire a hack to take 'em some place that the hackman has got some grudge ag'in' 'em--but he hain't--he's allus that way. He loves you but he knows his place, and smothers his real feelings. In life's giddy scenes hackmens all wears a mask; but down deep in their heart you kin bet they are yourn till deth. Some hackmens look like they wuz stuck up, but they hain't--it's only 'cause they got on so much clothes. Onc't a hackman wuz stabbed by a friend of his in the same bizness, an' when the doctors wuz seein' how bad he wuz karved up, they found he had on five shurts. They said that wuz all that saved his life. They said ef he'd on'y had on four shurts, he'd 'a' been a ded man. An' the hackman hissef, when he got well, used to brag it wuz the closetest call he ever had, an' laid fer the other hackman, an' hit him with a car couplin' an' killed him, an' come mighty nigh goin' to the penitenchary fer it. Influenshal friends wuz all that saved him that time. No five shurts would 'a' done it. The mayor said that when he let him off, an' brought down the house, an' made hissef a strong man fer another term. Some mayors is purty slick, but a humble hackman may sometimes turn out to be thist as smooth. The on'y thing w'y a hackman don't show up no better is 'cause he loses so much sleep. That's why he allus looks like he had the headache, an' didn't care ef he did. Onc't a hackman wuz waitin' in front of a hotel one morning an' wuz sort o' dozin' like, an' fell off his seat. An' they run an' picked him up, an' he wuz unconshus, an' they worked with him till 'way long in the afternoon 'fore they found out he wuz thist asleep; an' he cussed fearful cause they waked him up, an' wondered why people couldn't never tend to their own bizness like he did.
Ever'body is allus a-givin' it to Dudes. Newspapers makes fun of 'em, an' artists makes pictures of 'em; an' the on'y ones in the wide world that stuck on Dudes is me an' the Dudes theirse'f, an' we love an' cherish 'em with all a parent's fond regards. An' nobody knows much about Dudes neither, 'cause they hain't been broke out long enough yit to tell thist what the disease is. Some say it's softinning of the brains, an' others claim it can't be that, on the groun's they hain't got material fer the softinning to work on, &c., &c., till even "Sientests is puzzled," as the good book says. An' ef I wuz a-goin' to say what ails Dudes I'd have to give it up, er pernounce it a' aggervated case of Tyfoid blues, which is my 'onnest convictions. That's what makes me kind o' stand in with 'em--same as ef they wuz the under-dog. I am willing to aknolege that Dudes has their weakness, but so has ever'thing. Even Oscar Wild, ef putt to the test; an' I allus feel sorry fer George Washington 'cause he died 'fore he got to see Oscar Wild. An' then another reason w'y you oughten't to jump on to Dudes is, they don't know what's the matter with 'em any more than us folks in whom they come in daily contack. Dudes all walks an' looks in the face like they wuz on their way to fill an engagement with a revolvin' lady wax-figger in some milliner-winder, an' had fergot the number of her place of bizness. Some folks is mean enough to bitterly a'sert that Dudes is strained in their manner an' fools from choice; but they ain't. It's a gift--Dudes is Geenuses--that's what Dudes is!
Onc't a pore boy wuz red-hedded, an' got mad at the other boys when they'd throw it up to him. An' when they'd laugh at his red hed, an' ast him fer a light, er wuzn't he afeard he'd singe his cap, an' orto' wear a tin hat, er pertend to warm their hands by him,--w'y, sometimes the red-hedded boy'd git purty hot indeed; an' onc't he told another boy that wuz a-bafflin' him about his red hair that ef he wuz him he'd git a fine comb an' go to canvassin' his own hed, and then he'd be liabul to sceer up a more livelier subjeck to talk about than red hair. An' then the other boy says, "You're a liar" an' that got the red-hedded boy into more trouble; fer the old man whipped him shameful' fer breakin' up soil with the other boy. An' this here red-hedded boy had freckles, too. An' warts. An' nobody ortn't to 'a' jumpt on to him fer that. Ef anybody wuz a red-hedded boy they'd have also warts an' freckles--an' thist red-hair's bad enough. Onc't another boy told him ef he wuz him he bet he could make a big day look sick some night. An' when the red-hedded boy says "How?" w'y, the other boy he says "Easy enough. I'd thist march around bare-hedded in the torch-light p'cession."--"Yes, you would," says the red-hedded boy, an' pasted him one with a shinny club, an' got dispelled from school 'cause he wuz so high-tempered an' impulsiv. Ef I wuz the red-hedded boy I'd be a pirut; but he allus said he wuz goin' to be a baker.
"You don't want to never tamper with a cross-eyed girl," said Mr. Judkins, "and I'll tell you w'y: They've natur'lly got a better focus on things than a man would ever guess--studyin' their eyes, you understand. A man may think he's a-foolin' a cross-eyed girl simply because she's apparently got her eyes tangled on other topics as he's a-talkin' to her, but at the same time that girl may be a-lookin' down the windin' stairway of the cellar of his soul with one eye, and a-winkin' in a whisper to her own soul with the other, and her unconscious victim jes' a-takin' it fer granted that nothin' is the matter with the girl, only jes' cross-eyes! You see I've studied 'em," continued Judkins, "and I'm on to one fact dead sure--and that is, their natures is as deceivin' as their eyes is! Knowed one onc't that had her eyes mixed up thataway--sensitive little thing she was, and always referrin' to her 'misfortune,' as she called it, and eternally threatenin' to have some surgeon straighten 'em out like other folks'--and, sir, that girl so worked on my feelin's, and took such underholts on my sympathies that, blame me, before I knowed it I confessed to her that ef it hadn't 'a' been fer her defective eyes (I made it 'defective') I never would have thought of lovin' her, and, furthermore ef ever she did have 'em changed back normal, don't you understand, she might consider our engagement at an end--I did, honest. And that girl was so absolute cross-eyed it warped her ears, and she used to amuse herself by watchin' 'em curl up as I'd be a-talkin' to her, and that maddened me, 'cause I'm natur'lly of a jealous disposition, you know, and so, at last, I jes' casually hinted that ef she was really a-goin' to git them eyes carpentered up, w'y she'd better git at it: and that ended it. "And then the blame' girl turned right around and married a fellow that had a better pair of eyes than mine this minute! Then I struck another cross-eyed girl--not really a legitimate case, 'cause, in reality, she only had one off eye--the right eye, ef I don't disremember--the other one was as square as a gouge. And that girl was, ef any difference, a more confusin' case than the other, and besides all that, she had some money in her own right, and warn't a-throwin' off no big discount on one game eye. But I finally got her interested, and I reckon something serious might 'a' come of it--but, you see, her father was dead, and her stepmother sort o' shet down on my comin' to the house; besides that, she had three grown uncles, and you know how uncles is. I didn't want to marry no family, of course, and so I slid out of the scheme, and tackled a poor girl that clerked in a post-office. Her eyes was bad! I never did git the hang of them eyes of hern. She had purty hair, and a complexion, I used to tell her, which outrivalled the rose. But them eyes, you know! I didn't really appreciate how bad they was crossed, at first. You see, it took time. Got her to give me her picture, and I used to cipher on that, but finally worked her off on a young friend of mine who wanted to marry intellect--give her a good send-off to him--and she was smart--only them eyes, you know! Why, that girl could read a postal card, both sides at once, and smile at a personal friend through the office window at the same time!"
There was a more than ordinary earnestness in the tone of Mr. Judkins as he said: "Referrin' to this thing of bein' homesick, I want to say right here that of all diseases, afflictions er complaints, this thing of bein' homesick takes the cookies! A man may think when he's got a' aggrivated case of janders, er white-swellin', say, er bone-erysipelas, that he's to be looked up to as bein' purty well fixed in this vale of trouble and unrest, but I want to tell you, when I want my sorrow blood-raw, don't you understand, you may give me homesickness--straight goods, you know--and I'll git more clean, legitimate agony out of that than you can out of either of the other attractions--yes, er even ef you'd ring in the full combination on me! You see, there's no way of treatin' homesickness only one--and that is to git back home--but as that's a remedy you can't git at no drug store, at so much per box--and ef you could, fer instance, and only had enough ready money anyhow to cover half the cost of a full box--and nothin' but a full box ever reached the case--w'y, it follers that your condition still remains critical. And homesickness don't show no favors. It's jes' as liable to strike you as me. High er low, er rich er poor, all comes under her jurishdiction, and whenever she once reaches fer a citizen, you can jes' bet she gits there Eli, ever' time! "She don't confine herse'f to youth, ner make no specialty of little children either, but she stalks abroad like a census-taker, and is as conscientious. She visits the city girl clean up to Maxinkuckee, and makes her wonder how things really is back home without her. And then she haunts her dreams, and wakes her up at all hours of the night, and sings old songs over fer her, and talks to her in low thrillin' tones of a young man whose salary ain't near big enough fer two; and then she leaves her photograph with her and comes away, and makes it lively fer the boys on the train, the conductor, the brakeman and the engineer. She even nests out the travellin' man, and yanks him out of his reclinin' chair, and walks him up and down the car, and runs him clean out of cigars and finecut, and smiles to hear him swear. Then she gits off at little country stations and touches up the night operator, who grumbles at his boy companion, and wishes to dernation 'six' was in, so's he could 'pound his ear.' "And I'll never forgit," continued Mr. Judkins, "the last case of homesickness I had, and the cure I took fer it. 'Tain't been more'n a week ago neither. You see my old home is a'most too many laps from this base to make it very often, and in consequence I hadn't been there fer five years and better, till this last trip, when I jes' succumbed to the pressure, and th'owed up my hands and went. Seemed like I'd 'a' died if I hadn't. And it was glorious to rack around the old town again--things lookin' jes' the same, mighty nigh, as they was when I was a boy, don't you know. Run acrost an old schoolmate, too, and tuck supper at his happy little home, and then we got us a good nickel cigar, and walked and walked, and talked and talked! Tuck me all around, you understand, in the meller twilight--till, the first thing you know, there stood the old schoolhouse where me and him first learnt to chew tobacco, and all that! Well, sir! you hain't got no idea of the feelin's that was mine! W'y, I felt like I could th'ow my arms around the dear old buildin' and squeeze it till the cupolo would jes' pop out of the top of the roof like the core out of a b'ile! And I think if they ever was a' epoch in my life when I could 'a' tackled poetry without no compunctions, as the feller says, w'y, then was the time--shore!" [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |