THE LIBRARY
OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

IN MEMORY OF
MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER

SUSY S OVERSTRAINED NERVES RELAXED, AND SHE BURST INTO
WILD LAUGHTER

BIOGRAPHY

\BOY

BY

JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON

AUTHOR OK
"THK MEMOIRS OF A KAI:Y"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

ROSE O NEILL

HARPER & BROTHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON
M - C M X

BOOKS BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON

TEN TO SEVENTEEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo . $1.50
THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY. Ill d. Post 8vo . 1.50
THE BIOORAPHY OF A BOY. Ill d Post 8vo . 1.50

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.

Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
Alt rights reserved.

Published January, 1910.
tied in the United States oj .-liner

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. WHICH DEALS WITH A MOVING INCIDENT . . i

II. WHICH DEALS WITH THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE . 31

III. WHICH DEALS WITH THE EDUCATION OF NATURE 66

IV. W T HICH DEALS WITH A TIMELY PROBLEM . . 94

V. WHICH DEALS WITH ONE PILGRIM S PROGRESS . 129

VI. WHICH DEALS WITH COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA 164

VII. WHICH DEALS WITH OUR COMMON NEIGHBORS

AND How TO KNOW THEM 201

VIII. WHICH DEALS WITH A LITTLE SCIENCE AND A

GREAT DEAL OF HEALTH ... 235

IX. WHICH DEALS WITH THE CHANCES AND CHANGES

OF THIS MORTAL LIFE 280

2042002

ILLUSTRATIONS

SUSY S OVERSTRAINED NERVES RELAXED, AND SHE

BURST INTO WILD LAUGHTER Frontispiece

SUSY ESTABLISHED HERSELF COMFORTABLY ON HER

HUSBAND S KNEE Fating p. 2

SHE LOOMED BEFORE THEM, A DEMI-GODDESS . 34
" IT KEEPS THEIR MINDS BACK, TOM, AND THAT S

BETTER FOR THEM" 42

"DR. BOSKOWITZ WAS WONDERFULLY INTER
ESTING" ... 112

MAKING A COLLAR OF KISSES 124

HAMLET AND OPHELIA SAFELY PENNED IN THE

GARDEN I 9

HE TOOK MARTIN TO EVERY CIRCUS .... 22O

"I M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL" 238

TOM KISSED HER HASTILY AND DIVED THROUGH

THE SLEET 2 4 2

" AUNT EM WAS PLEASED " 24 6

"SHE LL SAY SHE HAD HIM FROM THE BOTTLE" 250

"NOW, MARTIN, PLEASE HOLD YOUR SHOULDERS

MORE EVEN"

HER HEAD WAS ON TOM S SHOULDER AND MARTIN S

ON HER KNEE 3 lS

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

WHICH DEALS WITH A MOVING INCIDENT

USY slipped out of her chair with
the quick girlish ease that seven
years of married life had failed to
steal from her, and established her
self comfortably on her husband s
knee, scattering legal papers with a fine unconcern.
"Tommy dear," she said thoughtfully, "I ve
been considering it a great deal lately, and I be
lieve you re right. I think we d better."

"Yes, dear up to the eighteenth of May of that
year, inclusive" he murmured mechanically, one
hand rescuing a knowing-looking packet labelled
Motion to Adjourn.

" It will be so much better for the children, and,

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

then, it would be nice to have more bedrooms
down at the beach it s so stupid not to be able
to keep but two people over Sunday, and they
must be married

"Who must be married?" Mr. Wilbour inquired
vaguely, snatching a long - waisted, tan - colored
document entitled Brandergert vs. Terwilliger from
under his wife and endeavoring vainly to thrust
it into his pocket.

"Why, anybody that we have in the blue
room," Susy explained impatiently.

Her husband regarded her seriously, his at
tention now fully, if somewhat tardily, aroused.

"That seems reasonable," he admitted. "I am
not unduly priggish, I hope, but one has to draw
the line somewhere, and really, when you think
of it, we have er comparatively few friends
who fail to qualify as far as that simple convention
ality goes

Susy bounced severely upon his knee.

"What are you talking about, Tommy?" she
interrupted. "All I am saying is that whoever
comes must be married, and it s a great nuisance!
I suppose you agree to that, don t you?"

Tom stared at her.

"For Heaven s sake, Susan Wilbour," he ex
claimed dramatically, "what has happened?
Are you going to be like people in Ibsen? Are

SL SY ESTABLISHED HERSELF COMFORTABLY ON HER HUSBAND S

KNEE

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

you Advanced? You re like that Englishwoman
that writes those novels and has a salon! Is
Marriage a Nuisance? My dear Toots! and to
think that seven years ago . . .

"Don t be silly, Tommy," she cut him short
severely; "of course, you know very well I mean
nothing of the kind. And I think a salon is
ridiculous. Mrs. Strenway started to have one
once, and there was only water-ices and Mr.
Strenway played bridge all the time. You
needn t laugh. Everybody was disgusted. I am
not discussing marriage at all, but only saying
that it s a pity that nobody but people who are
married ... I mean, that it is too bad that people
have to be married in order . . . Oh, Tom, how
horrid you are! I don t think you re a bit kind,
and I sha n t say another word about it, and you ll
be sorry, too, for it was all on your account!"

She endeavored to leave her seat with dignity,
but this is a difficult feat to accomplish when the
seat happens to be one s husband, unless the hus
band in question is disposed to assist one s descent.
Tom was not, and after a few helpless jerks Susy
subsided into a stern martyrdom which yielded
before long to his irresistible chuckling.

"Never mind, Toots," he managed to get out
at last. "I believe in you. Appearances are
against you, but you mean well at bottom, and

5

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

though you seem immoral I am sure your prin
ciples are sound. What you are trying to say

"I could say it well enough, Tom, if only you d
let me alone for a momsnt ! What I mean is that
it is horrid to have only one guest-room in the
summer."

"I know it," he admitted sympathetically, but
with one eye on Brandergert vs. Terwilliger.

"And if you knew the horrid things Martin
hears in the park he will chase after the rough
boys. And Thomas can t move a step without
a nurse. . . . Tom, I simply won t talk to you if you
won t pay some attention to what we re talking
about!"

"But I am I do," he cried penitently, for
Susy was evidently hurt in earnest now, "really,
Toots! We were talking about the the blue
room and the park and and nurses!"

"Not at all," said Mrs. Wilbour briefly, sweeping
the documents to the floor and grasping the lapels
of her husband s coat, looking him in the eye,
meantime, with that firm, intentional kindness
which is supposed to be so efficient in subduing the
inhabitants of the jungle.

"We re not talking about that at all, Tom
Wilbour!"

"Then what are we talking about?" said Mr.
Wilbour resignedly.

6

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"We re talking about moving into the country,"
and Susy settled herself comfortably against his
shoulder.

"Oh-h-h!" Tom drew a long whistling breath
and dismissed Brandergcrt vs.Terwilliger definitely.

"Really, Toots? Would you like it?"

"I told you you d be sorry," she added content
edly, "and it doesn t cost so very much to put in
a new bath-room if you have it directly over the
old one, does it?"

Tom gasped, but made a noble effort.

I believe not, he said gravely. Had you any
particular bath-room in mind?"

Susy looked at him with real reproach and shook
the lapels impatiently.

"Why, Tom Wilbour," she cried, "as if you
hadn t picked it out yourself! Who was it ad
mired that vine over the side porch? Who was
it that said we could bottle the spring water and
sell it? Who told Aunt Emma that that newel
post was really Colonial?"

Tom drew a long breath and appeared to in
voke the shades of a dim and distant past, while
his wife shook him gently at intervals as if to settle
his faculties.

"Oh!" he said at last, "do you mean that old
white house on the Albany Post Road last
summer?"

7

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

You didn t talk about it like that, then." And
the dignified forbearance in his wife s tone would
have deceived any one but her husband.

Mr. Wilbour, startled by a sudden and un
usually peremptory ring at the door-bell, jumped
slightly and endeavored to turn the movement
into one of convulsive admiration for the old
white house, which aroused but faint memories
after the lapse of several busy months.

"Ah that was a fine old place!" he observed
with suspiciously sudden enthusiasm. "If you re
really interested in the country, dear, we might go
out and look about a bit this spring, when I can
get a little of this work off

"This spring, Tom!" It was clear that he had
struck the wrong note. "The spring is the time
to move, silly! you look about before that. Our
lease expires in April, you know, and we can t wait
till then, can we? We must move then."

"Oh!" Tom shuddered, not entirely theatri
cally, and gazed beseechingly at his wife. "Don t
say that awful word to me, Toots dear, even in
jest," he begged. Aside from the fact that we can
hardly go into this without a little more serious
consideration, I think the mere thought of moving
would nail me to this spot forever, even if we knew
where we were going to move to! Do you re
member the awful occasion when we moved from

THE BIOGRAPNY OF A BOY

Forty-seventh Street? You may not recall the
fact tnat I had to help collect Thomas s crib and
two dozen collars and a drawer full of evening
shirts from the middle of Sixth Avenue and
blocked the traffic for half an hour boosting that
infernal chiffonier into the van, with everybody
grinning around me and the policemen a disgrace
to the Force! Move, indeed! When I think

Here the door -bell rang sharply again, and
Susy looked apprehensively toward the win
dow.

"But you wouldn t have had to think of it,
Tom, if you hadn t insisted in following them in
a cab, you know," she interrupted soothingly;
"and anyway, we wouldn t employ them again.
They were really second-class people"- Tom
snorted violently "and this time we d do it very
differently."

"This time!" he repeated vaguely.

"You see," Susy went on, glancing expectantly
toward the library door from time to time, and
producing, as if by some feat of legerdemain, a
small pea-green pamphlet from nowhere in par
ticular, "all these people have given their full
names and addresses, and lots of them are in New
York, so we could call them up on the telephone
any time and see

"See what?" her husband inquired suspiciously,
9

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

viewing the closely printed pamphlet coldly.
"What do you mean, Susy?"

"See whether Slide & Bumpus do all they say
they do," Mrs. Wilbour replied calmly.

"Who in time are Slide & Bumpus?" he de
manded, snatching the booklet mechanically from
her outstretched hand.

"Why Wear Yourself Out, Moving?" the title-
page urged cordially. Let us Attend to it while
You are at the Matinee! Then Return to your
New Home! We Absolutely Guarantee that you
will find Everything In Perfect Order there!"

Tom grinned sardonically.

I suppose you remember the evening we found
Martin s electric railroad spiked down in perfect
order to the library floor and my bed in perfect
order in the laundry, don t you?" he inquired.

Susy shook her head impatiently.

"But these people are utterly different, Tom!"

"I hope so, I hope so, my dear. Not that I
have the slightest interest in Messrs. Slide & Bump
us, but I should hate to think that any firm
in this universe remotely resembled the brutal
pirates that littered Sixth Avenue with my un
derwear!"

"Here s a good one," Susy remarked abruptly,
"this one from Miss Julia Dart Olmstead the
well known woman writer, " she quoted hastily

10

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

from the booklet, as Miss Olmstead s name failed
to evoke any sign of recognition from her hus
band.

"/ should feel myself lacking in common grati
tude were I to omit this utterly unsolicited tes
timonial to Messrs. Slide & Bumpus" Susy
announced eagerly. "/ have moved nine times
in the course of a perhaps unusually varied life,
and to state that destruction has followed in the wake
of eight of these upheavals is to put the case mildly.
But since Mr. Slide s personal and gentlemanly
ministrations t? my household gods, I can truly
say that I am quite willing to move nine times more
if he will attend to it ! Beyond the collecting of my
personal baggage (clothes, manuscripts, etc.] I had
absolutely nothing to do with the transfer of the
entire contents of my apartment from Fifteenth
Street to One Hundred and Forty-first, and not so
much as a drop of ink was spilled or mislaid.
Indeed, an old and valued fountain-pen, which I
had carelessly left in the sideboard, was the first
sight that greeted my astonished eyes, in its old place
on my pen- rack in the opened desk! Mr. Slide s
work was a revelation to me. His charges were
little more than I have been accustomed to pay for
work of a vastly different character, and I cordially
recommend his services to any one who, like myself,

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

finds life all too short for the nervous strain of at
tending personally to his Lares and Penates.

"There!" Susy finished triumphantly, "you can
see what she thinks of them!"

"Yes, and I can see what I think of her!" Mr.
Wilbour replied promptly. "I think she needs a
keeper not a mover. I ll bet they re sorry up at
One Hundred and Forty-first vStreet now ! Not a
drop of ink mislaid, forsooth! She must be a
bird. Let s see the book, anyhow."

Sweetly unsuspicious of the cause of his interest,
Susy handed her husband the pea-green pamphlet
and listened with earnest attention to his spirited
rendering of the almost fulsome admiration of one
Jos. P. Weeks for the invaluable Mr. Slide.

"// any one had told me" began Mr. Weeks,
with engaging candor, "that Slide & Bumpus
could do what they do do, I should say they lied.
When my wife wanted to move into the city I put
my foot down hard, because I well remembered what
an awful time we had in moving down from Troy.
But you know what a woman is, and of course I had
to give in or be miserable. But mind you, I said,
whatever breaks, breaks, and we either go without
or eat from the pieces. There won t be anything
broken that s not replaced on a guarantee, she said,

12

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

and so it was, for in moving from Morristoivn to
New York not so much as a lamp-chimney cracked!
I was at the office all day, and my wife did nothing
but pack the trunks for children and self. She
assured me she had often had more trouble in starting
for the seashore. The only accident was the death
of my daughter Ethel s pet canary-bird, but as he
was eight years old we feel that it was probably due
to shock and could not fairly be laid to their door.
But even for this Slide & Bumpus immediately of
fered a new canary, which was, of course, not accepted.
I advise every one who thinks of moving to consult
Mr. Slide, and promise them they will not regret it.
"(Signed) Jos. P. WEEKS."

Long before the conclusion of Mr. Weeks s artless
discourse Susy realized that Tom s appreciation of
the booklet was slightly different in character
from her own, and she made futile endeavors to
snatch it from him ; but he held it out of her reach
easily, and read with unnecessary expression dis
connected eulogies upon the extraordinarily gifted
firm in question, while she hopped vainly after
him, divided between wrath and laughter.

"Well, if you think these aren t respectable
people," he vouchsafed at last, "here s Mrs.
Brander Beekman I hope she s good enough for
you! Here s what she says:

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"/ cheerfully bear witness to Messrs. Slide &
Bumpus s competent and satisfactory methods. In
moving my establishment from Washington Square
to East Sixty-eighth Street (of which they assumed
entire supervision) no loss whatever occurred, and
only one breakage the stem of a hock-glass in
Bohemian ware. As replacing this was out of the
question, the set being specially imported, Mr.
Slide had the glass repaired so expertly that it is,
if anything, stronger and more artistic than the
remainder of the set. Mr. Slide is quite at liberty
to use my name as a reference.

(Signed)

"FRANCES B. BRANDER BEEKMAN.

"Well, well, well!" said Mr. Wilbour thought
fully, "what do you think of that, now? See
here, Toots," casually raising the book an inch
beyond her grasp, "do you suppose if we should
ever move and Slide & Bumpus took charge of it,
they d cover these leather chairs on the way to
the new home ? Maybe they d re-line my hat-
box while you were at the matinee! Didn t
you say the piano needed

"Hush, Tom, I think he s coming now!" Susy
cried nervously.

"Coming! Who s coming?" Tom demanded.

"Why, Mr. Slide, of course now, do be careful,

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

Tom, and don t hurt his feelings, please. He s
really quite gentlemanly."

The green booklet dropped from her husband s
hand; his face fell.

"Susan Wilbour, will you tell me why in
Heaven s name a moving man should come here,
when we have no place to move to and no idea of
moving, really ? What possessed you

"Sh, sh, Tom! He s up-stairs now. I was
trying to tell you Aunt Emma and I went out
there last week and got the refusal of that place
with the vine it does no harm to just get the
refusal, Tommy, dear, and it s a great bargain it s
bound to be snapped up! And Mr. Slide said he d
look in, in case you wanted him to make the
estimate, that s all. It doesn t bind you to any
thing Oh, Tom, don t look so stupid! Please!
There there he is! Come in!"

Susy arranged her features pleasantly, but Tom
was utterly unable to do this and stared with a
mixture of surprise and horror at Mr. Slide, a
dapper little man with reddish hair and a meek
expression, who cast such an appraising glance
over the room, even in the act of entering it, that
the master of the house gripped the arms of his
chair instinctively, as if in fear of its slipping into
a van from under him!

But no one even slightly acquainted with Mr.
15

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

Thomas Wilbour would have expected him to
remain for long quiescent in such circumstances,
and Susy, in the midst of a perfunctory discussion
of the weather, saw with despair that her husband
was about to revenge himself for her sudden dis
closures by an exhibition of what was known in the
family as his "ridiculous behavior."

"And when have you decided to move us, Mr.
Slide?" he inquired suavely. "I don t wish to
seem intrusive, but it will take a little time for
those clothes, manuscripts, etc. that even Miss
Miss -ah, yes, Miss Julia Dart Olmstead, the well-
known woman writer, found herself obliged to
attend to."

THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY

"Tom!" Susy murmured beseechingly, but he
only smiled politely and continued.

"There was Jos. P. Weeks, too you know, Mr.
Slide, how his wife packed the trunks for children
and self! Don t tell me we re leaving this after
noon!"

Mr. Slide chuckled nervously and glanced at
Susy.

"Hardly, Mr. Wilbour, hardly," he said sooth
ingly, "we require forty-eight hours notice, you
know. You ll be warned, sir, you ll be warned!"

Ah !" Tom affected an airy relief. And have
you decided on the new home, Mr. Slide? I
hadn t known that we were moving till a few
moments ago, and "

"Please, Tom!" Susy implored, her eyes fast
ened distractedly on their visitor. But her fears
were baseless. Mr. Slide only wagged his head
wisely and indicated his hostess with an almost
courtly wave of the hand.

Ask the madam, Mr. Wilbour, ask the madam !"
he cried chirpily, "that s my advice, right along!
No use making any plans without the madam, I
tell all the gentlemen. Just leave it to her, sir.
As I ve often remarked to Mr. Bumpus, when it
comes to moving, the sexes is reversed, you might
say, and we always look to the lady!"

"Like Jos. P. Weeks," Tom suggested thought-
17

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

fully, "he seems to have come to that conclusion,
too."

"I see you re familiar with our booklet," Mr.
Slide ended cordially. "We think that s a pretty
interesting lot o testimonials, Mr. Wilbour and I
hope we may have the privilege of addin yours to
it," he concluded neatly.

At this climax to the conversation Tom threw
up his hands and tacitly relinquished all further
satire. Indeed, when upon repairing to the
nursery at the top of the house he found his two-
year-old son and namesake busily engaged in
packing six picture-blocks, a ball of twine, and a
badly worn woolly lamb on three wheels into his
golf-bag, and rescued from Martin, his first-born,
two razors, four match-boxes, and a miraculously

1 8

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

intact ink-bottle, which the misguided youth was
fitting cleverly into Susy s dressing-case (on the
ground that he was an expert mover and was
preserving these forbidden necessities from the
baby), Tom resigned himself to what appeared
an inevitable exodus.

As a matter of fact, the whole affair proved far
more practical than its whimsical introduction had
warranted. The vine-covered house, which he had
honestly admired, was in perfect repair, fresh, and
habitable; its price, at no time excessive, assumed
the character of a really good investment when the
owner declared himself ready to stand by his
original offer to Susy, in spite of the railroad s
decision, published two days later, to build a new
and attractive station within a mile of the prop
erty; a neighbor on the point of moving to Cali
fornia offered a "hired man " horses, carriages,
garden tools, and a spotty red cow with her
daughter, at a surprisingly low figure; the road
commission promised a macadamized countryside
in the course of the year; and altogether the proj
ect, though apparently an unreasonably casual
one, was far from the mere hasty impulse it ap
peared, and Tom admitted generously that, like
many others of Susy s sudden manoeuvres, it was
likely to be a great success when once he had
caught his breath.

19

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

On a mild promising morning in late March
they journeyed thither for a final survey, six-
year-old Martin hanging ecstatically to his father s
hand, chanting to all who crossed his path the
golden glory of fishing, skating, tree-climbing, and
pony-riding that was to irradiate his future years ;
while Susy murmured a steady undertone of box-
hedges, table-butter churned in the pantry, lattice
work in the windows, and brick paths to the
inevitable pergola that closed the vista of her
dreams.

They spent a happy day, pacing off the garden
with the new gardener, inspecting the neighbor s
cow, testing the low-hung phaeton, which supplied
a delightfully providential tiny folding-seat for
Martin, and allotting for the last time the pleasant,
generous rooms ; and when Tom saw the neat plans
for these last, with the disposition of the larger
pieces of furniture carefully indicated, the very
rugs labelled, and listed directions for the unpack
ed china, and heard from Susy of her day-long
consultation on the spot with Mr. Slide, he formally
apologized for his unwarrantable derision of that
artist in details and admitted that the terrors of
moving were banished forever, together with the
tallow-candle and the stage-coach. With charac
teristic ardor he even meditated a testimonial
along these lines to the firm, announcing his am-

20

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

bition to outdo Miss Julia Dart Olmstead, that
well-known woman writer, in the matter of con
vincing detail, and at least vie with the friendly
Jos. P. Weeks in sturdy enthusiasm. He heartily
agreed with Susy s quotation to the effect that
she would be really more in the way than other
wise on the occasion of the settling (the ladies, Mr.
Slide volunteered, seemed to upset the moving-
men, somehow), and though he grinned mock
ingly at her almost superstitious determination to
attend the matinee, even as the pea-green pam
phlet had urged, he could not produce any urgent
argument to the contrary, and deposited Bell,
the nurse, with her youngest charge, in an early
afternoon train, received her assurances that the
last van-load had left in good order, and that the
cook and housemaid were even now ready to begin
their accustomed tasks in their new surroundings,
and went back to his office serenely, only regretting
that an unusually pressing day s work forbade his
accompanying Susy and Martin to the afternoon
performance of Buffalo Bill one of the saint s
days in his son s calendar.

Lost in work, he woke with a start to the realiza
tion that he had but fifteen minutes in which to
catch the train, and his muttered exclamations as
he dashed for the intermediate conveyances were
productive of much simple amusement to those

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

unfortunate city dwellers in his way, who breathed
the unwholesome air of their crowded streets with
some leisure, at least or so it appeared to his
perturbed mind. Swinging himself onto the last
car, as the train pulled out, he just escaped the
fine, dense drizzle that quickly enveloped the
landscape; before he had found Susy in the long
crowded train a heavy rain was falling from a
prematurely darkened sky.

But no journey could seem dismal to Martin,
whose soul was steeped in the gorgeous pageants
of the afternoon, and he prattled ceaselessly of
Indians and scouts, of trick mules and wigwams,
of cannon and rough-riding, while even the delay
of half an hour, while the wreckers cleared a de
railed freight-train from their course, failed to
exhaust his descriptive zeal. For years after
ward Tom connected all such delays and rainy
home-comings with a confused sense of half-re
membered Cossacks, standing on their bare
backed steeds, yelling terribly, of deafening shots
and scrimmages, of painted red men, and finally
of some great absurd calamity connected with all
this so deeply was this journey impressed upon
his mind, so undreamed of was its ending.

The first of the livery-men drawn up in a strag
gling row by the little country station recognized
them promptly, to their comfort, and enclosed

22

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

them quickly in his steaming, curtained car
riage.

"I just come back from your new place, Mr.
Wilbour been helpin the movers!" he called
cheerily, as he pushed in the dripping suit-cases
and canvas hold-alls. "You got a good bargain
when you bought that place!"

A genuine London fog received them : the feeble
light from the lantern attached to the back wheel
barely cut across it ; they might have been driving
through China. The road seemed tiresomely long,
with none of the familiar daytime landmarks,
and Susy, more exhausted from the strenuous
afternoon than she cared to admit, grew momently
despondent, and fearful that some accident had
delayed or deterred even the impeccable Slide &
Bumpus. Perhaps Bell had made a mistake . . .
perhaps the kitchen things . . . suppose there was
no cereal for Thomas ?

"Or for me!" Martin suggested, with the sus
picion of a whine. "I haven t had any cereal since
the last day before this one! I m afraid I ll be
sick if I don t have some pretty soon I think I
feel a little sick, now

"There, there, Martin, that will do. Here we
are! All lighted and comfy, Toots there s Bell!"

A path of light cut through the mist, and the
travellers scudded to shelter. The open door

2 3

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

showed a hospitable hall, a bright fire that
flickered on all the familiar mahogany, a satisfy
ing gleam of linen and silver in the dining-room.
Thomas was reported fast asleep, unbelievably
full of cereal, and every picture, every tea -cup
tallied perfectly with the inventory, in Bell s
voluble recital.

"Mr. Slide told me to tell you how sorry he was,
ma am, not to be able to come himself, but Mr.
Bumpus knew all about it, he said, and was every
bit as good. There s a handle off the old secretary,
but he ll attend to it. There s only eleven salad-
plates, but I guess there never was no more, Mrs.
Wilbour. I"

"Oh, dear, never mind, Bell! I m so tired!"
sighed Susy. "Take Martin to bed. Tom, dear,
did you think the furniture would make such a
difference? It seems so crowded. The sideboard
looks simply enormous. I suppose it will seem
nicer to-morrow . . .

"They ve left a lot of the old stuff that s
what s the matter," said Tom critically. "You
wouldn t think the few old sticks that man had
would make such a difference. I told him to pitch
it all into the barn

"So he did, Mr. Wilbour," explained Bell, who,
well aware of her present importance, was de
laying Martin s retirement from the family circle,

24

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

"He was real cross about it he said you d ought
to have said how much there was he was awful
rough with it."

"Nonsense," said Tom decidedly, "Slide saw it
all. I don t care what they did with it, anyhow.
Isn t there any dinner for us?"

"That s another thing, Mrs. Wilbour," and Bell
moved confidentially nearer. "Mary s very upset
about the range. You know you said it was
almost new, and she counted a good deal on that,
but you didn t say how small it was. There isn t
any room

"There won t be any room for Mary if I hear
any more nonsense," said Mr. Wilbour firmly.
"Tell her we re here, Bell. . . . Dear me, Susy, did
you intend that serving- table to stand out here?"

"No; but I can t see \vhere it could go in the
dining-room, I must say," and Susy studied the
room discontentedly. "And the living-room has
too much in it, too it seems so small."

"We re tired," said her husband sensibly
"tired and hungry. It 11 be different to-morrow.
Are the bedrooms all right, Bell?"

"Yes, sir, except that that old Mr. Bumpus
would put your bed and Mrs. Wilbour s into that
big room, Mr. Wilbour. It was no use to argue
with him. He said if any two beds \vas to be in
one room it must be them two, the room was so

25

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

dreadful big. I thought twas meant for the
nursery, from the pictures on the wall-paper, but
he said twas a big double room, and there was no
sense in putting one bed in it and then have two
in a smaller room."

"The silly old thing!" Susy eried pettishly,
dropping into a seat at the table, and dragging the
plan of the furniture from her hand-bag. "Here s
the exact duplicate of his copy; there, Tom, read
it! Mrs. Wilbour s room, southwest corner; old-
rose paper; three-quarter brass bed with round
columns; between windows. Mr. Wilbour s room,
connecting; three-quarter brass bed with square
columns, facing Franklin stove. Could anything
be plainer ? How could he directly disobey that ?"

"Yes m," said Bell virtuously. "He showed
Mary that paper I was undressing Thomas at
the time and explained to her. He said ladies
got excited sometimes and didn t put down
exactly what they meant, but he understood that
and always used his judgment, he d had so much
experience."

Tired as he was Tom laughed, and the sound
cleared away a little of the impalpable disappoint
ment both had felt since they entered the house.
It seemed inexplicably cramped, not so fresh and
spaced as they had pictured it. Everything was
in place, indeed, and not badly placed, though in

26

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

more than one instance the allotted areas had
proved insufficient and the furniture had crowded
uncomfortably. But the change from the old
environment had turned out a little disastrous, it
had to be admitted frankly. The ceilings, which
had seemed beautifully proportioned, looked
strangely low, now that the high -boy and old
secretary nearly reached them ; the fire - irons
dwarfed the hearth, which had seemed ample in
the empty room; the very doors had narrowed in
their full city draperies.

In silence they fell upon the soup and roast that
even the small range had not spoiled, and un
der the cheering
influence of hot,
freshly cooked
food Susy smiled
again and Tom
proposed a thor
ough survey,
even allowing
Martin, sleepy
with the sud
den warmth and
double rations
of toast - and-
milk and molas
ses-cake, trium-

3

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

phantly eaten with the grown people, to accom-
pany them.

They toiled up the stairs, each bravely conceal
ing from the other the shock of their narrowness,
when carpeted; and the utter inadequacy of the
landing, where the grandfather clock, their pride
in the city, nearly crowded unwary climbers
over the rail. In the upper hall Susy stopped,
staring.

I can t help it, Tom, but I m all turned around !"
she cried despairingly. "What is Martin s room
doing there? Are those stairs, beyond the bath
room?"

"That s not the bath-room, Mrs. Wilbour,"
Bell announced instructively, "that s Thomas s
and mine. It s awful small. And I hate to have
Martin way off alone, there. He does get so un
covered. I told that Mr. Bumpus so, but he said
orders was orders. But ain t these floors lovely,
ma am?"

Tom glanced unconsciously at the elaborate
inlay under his feet, stared, lifted the rug, and
stared again. He looked up hastily at Susy, but
she was arguing with the obstinate Bell as to the
whereabouts of Martin s room, and did not notice
her husband when he gasped audibly, seized the
handle of the nearest door, and plunged into the
large room where Mr. Bumpus s experience had

28

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

placed the two three-quarter brass beds of Susy s
plan.

In a moment he emerged, and the extraor
dinary expression of his countenance arrested
her on the verge of her own further explora
tion.

"Why, Tom, what is it? Is is anything
wrong?"

"Toots," he said, his voice quivering strangely,
"oblige me by looking into that room. Keep
calm, now. Only look."

Hesitatingly, her eyes fixed on his changing
features, Susy moved to the door, turned the
handle slowly, and entered. A moment later a
short, breathless shriek brought them all in to
her. Sitting on the three - quarter brass bed
with square columns which has been mentioned
before, she pointed wildly to an old - fashioned
fireplace with a high, heavy fender in front of
it and quaint porcelain tiles set about it. Around
the wall, at the level of the high fender, ran
a frieze representing Jack and Jill, the Three
Blind Mice, the Death of Cock Robin, and other
classic tragedies, sufficiently decorative, to be
sure, but not of a character usually selected by
adults for the adornment of their sleeping-apart
ments.

"Tom! TomWilbour!" she cried hysterically,

2Q

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

"what is this room? Where is it? Where are
we?"

"My dear," her husband replied with the quiet
tones of utter resignation, "to be perfectly frank
with you, I haven t the least idea! I feel like
friend Jos. P. Weeks : if any one had told me that
Slide & JBumpus could have done what they have
done, I should say they lied! They ve moved us,
Toots, they ve moved us but the Lord knows
where!"

II

WHICH DEALS WITH THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE

HE excitement of the hunt for their
real home, the pleasure of finding it,
and finding it far more suited to
their needs than the one provided
by Messrs. Slide & Bumpus, and the
breathless dash of establishing themselves in it
swept along the house of Wilbour in a wild rush,
an actual fury of living, that caused their entire
past to appear dull and uneventful in the extreme.
Mad meals were snatched here and there in un
heard-of places ; a general flavor of cold meat and
casual desserts marked the period; and between
their contrite efforts to reinstate the possessions
of the innocent and ignorant owners of the wrong

3 1

house, and their strenuous dismantling of their own
effects, life grew almost too complicated for
patience. Susy, having staked her reputation for
efficiency upon Slide & Bumpus and lost it
refused with characteristic disgust any further
commerce with any sort of professional assistance,
and got those articles which a certain well-known
woman writer would undoubtedly have described
as "her household gods" over the necessary half
mile of country road with very much the primitive
methods adopted by Mrs. Noah on the occasion
of that lady s retirement to the Ark.

Relying upon Bell s known accuracy of memory,
they arranged such of the original furniture as had
withstood the shock of Mr. Bumpus s scornful
casting out, according to the nurse s proud and
apparently competent directions ; but many of the
pieces had only too clearly seen their best days
before they were so rudely thrown into the barn,
and that the short exodus had not improved them
was terribly obvious. To replace things of such
character was difficult if not impossible, and Susy
swayed between tears and laughter, as battered
ebony easels, limping bamboo tables, suspiciously
ancestral fire-screens and incredible crayon por
traits emerged from the great heap in the old barn,
shrank almost visibly under the caustic comments
of Mr. Wilbour and found their way into painfully

3 2

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

prominent corners under Bell s important guid
ance

"They must be a queer lot," Tom grumbled dis
gustedly, unearthing an extraordinary amateur
oil-painting of Niagara by moonlight: a yard of
light green water, adorned with what appeared to
be saucers of whipped cream.

"Think of having matched- wood floors and tiled
fireplaces like that, and then pictures like this!"

"Oh, I don t know," Susy answered perversely,
"other people have different sorts of things, too.
Look at that old Sistine Madonna we have to keep
in sight on account of Aunt Emma!"

Tom snorted argumentatively, and stood Niag
ara - by- moonlight bottom side up, which rather
improved it than otherwise, in his wrath.

"Oh, come now, Toots!" he burst forth, "don t
be an idiot! Engravings of the Sistine Madonna
are bad enough, I admit, but Raphael never com
promised himself to this extent!" He glared at
the absurd whipped-creamy water and staggered
under it to the hall, where Bell serenely directed
its location.

This easy mastery of events, as displayed by
their nurse, completely captivated Martin and his
brother. Long had she represented to them the
height of executive ability and implacable au
thority; long had her judgment and address decid-

33

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

ed the ultimate issues of their small lives; but
never before had they seen their parents thus hang
upon her lightest word, and she loomed before
them accordingly a demi-goddess, a sort of benig
nant Fate. At her command their father rolled a
clumsy square piano across the room, and fitted it,
with compressed lips, into an inconvenient alcove.
On her pause for reflection their mother paused
also, a dented "Rogers group" balanced at
shoulder height, her brows knitted anxiously till
Bell unbent her own and waved her hand toward
a plush-topped, three-legged table under the most
haunting of the crayon portraits. There were no
inconsequent bursts of laughter, now, at this
wonder-nurse s remarks, no amused tolerance of
her persistencies, no criticism of her methods.
Clearly she was appreciated at last, held at her
true value, placed properly at the head of the
household, and Martin watched her with pro
prietary pride.

The whole experience of moving had, indeed,
been most entertaining and instructive to the
youth. Never in the six years of his life had he
been so left to his own devices, so free to ad
minister to Thomas that valuable fraternal dis
cipline to which so many of our young men owe
whatever strength of character they can call their
own to-day. To tell the truth, Thomas seemed

34

SITE LOOMED BEFORE THEM, A DEMI-GODDESS

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

not wholly appreciative of the advantages of this
freedom on his brother s part, and after some
unusual bout of brotherly exertion on his ungrate
ful behalf would often call to mind a small, too-
thoroughly-snuffed candle! But on the whole
he admired Martin and respected his trousers and
his temper equally, and his roly-poly little person
was considered reasonably safe in his brother s
custody.

On the evening of the never-to-be-forgotten
day of Bell s supremacy the younger members
of the Wilbour family snatched a hasty supper
of hominy and milk, served somewhat irrelevantly
in a cut-glass salad - bowl, although eaten with
pewter spoons from the kitchen. They were
sitting side by side upon a piano-bench drawn up
to the library table-desk, and the unprejudiced
observer might have been pardoned his mild
curiosity as to Bell s reasons for selecting the exact
middle of the lower hall for the scene of the meal
their first in their new home. No one could move
himself or his burden in or out of the house without
bumping into some one of the trio ; the sharp edge
of the piano -bench threatened every shin within
a yard of it; each interesting arrival or departure
elicited a whoop of congratulation from Martin
and diverted Thomas s attention from his hominy
with woful results to the mahogany surface of the

37

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

desk. But wild horses could not have dragged
their nurse from what she considered, evidently,
to be a commanding position, and her air of easy
authority when directing the only assistants
Susy would tolerate two thick-skulled Italian
laborers lost nothing in her admiring charges
estimation from the fact that her remarks were
quite unintelligible to the persons addressed.

"Everybody minds you, don t they, Bell?"
said Martin respectfully, recovering from a violent
shock as his father s chiffonier trotted by him on
two mysterious legs, and just saving Thomas s
last spoonful from drenching the rug, as that
interested infant tried to consume it with
his head twisted around between his shoulder-
blades.

"They might do worse sometimes," Bell replied
conservatively. "I m not so helpless as some.
Here, take that into the bath-room! Bath
room ! Understand ?

"Si, si, signora" the Italian murmured pacifi
cally, trotting into the dining-room and depos
iting the nickel sponge-rack and soap-dish on
either side the fernery on the sideboard.

"If your mother d speak louder, those Dagoes
would understand her as well as me," she added
didactically, "but you can t boss em with hat
pins in your mouth not properly, that is."

38

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"No baf-room!" Thomas announced abruptly,
with one of his disconcerting appreciations of the
situation never to be counted on, never to be
guarded against. "No baf-room: diney-woom!
Bad man run off Thomas soapey - dish. No
sponge-baf fahver s diney-woom! Thomas put
in tub. Good-bye come again, thank you!"

"You stay where you are, Thomas Wilbour!
What are you talking about ? Of course you
won t have a sponge -bath in the dining-room!
The idea! Now you go right on and eat that
bread. It s too fresh for you, but it can t be
helped, with things as upset as they are. Try to
chew it good, now. Will Thomas chew?"

"No. Thomas get soapey-dish. No chew."

"There s where you re foolish," remarked his
father, coming up unexpectedly with an armful of
sash - curtains on one arm and three armfuls of
portieres on the other. His articulation was
obscured by the draperies, but his intonation was
unmistakable.

"If I had some soap or anything to chew,
you can bet I d chew it ! I ve had little or nothing
since those sardines and mustard pickles this noon.
Bell, isn t anything ready yet? I can t stand this
much longer. Really."

"I ll see, Mr. Wilbour, but I don t hardly think
so," returned Bell somewhat patronizingly; "those

39

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

Dagoes are dreadful slow. And they took the
kitchen things out into the stable the first time,
you know, and they had to be all brought back.
But I ll see."

Tom sank dispiritedly upon the portieres and
stared hungrily at the empty salad-bowl.

"Lord! I wish we d stayed with Niagara-by-
moonlight," he sighed; "there was a fire in that
range. What are you eating, Susan Wilbour?
Where did you get it?"

"Lemon layer-cake," said Susy complacently,
wiping off the last crumbs with a dusty hand and
depositing a bronze bust of Napoleon in a terra
cotta flower -bowl. "Mary made it just before
we came and forgot about it. There s some more
in the linen -closet. Right next your hat-box.
Children, why aren t you in bed?"

"We haven t got any beds," Martin informed
her cheerfully, "so I guess we can t never prob ly
go any more for a long, 1-o-n-g time. They won t
go into the door they re too fat. So the Dagoes
took em all apart and now they re too apart,
you know. So Thomas is going to sleep in
the bath - tub and I m going to sit up late.
See?"

"I wish you wouldn t train that boy to say
See? that way," Tom observed irritably; "he
sounds like a Yiddish necktie peddler. Heaven

40

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

knows, I m not particularly cr, er -particular,
but

"You re particularly idiotic," Susy interrupted
warmly, "if you think that I or anybody else
trains him to say that! I don t know where in the
world the horrid child picked it up. You might
as well say that I train Thomas to blow his nose
on his sleeve -why don t you ? He does it all the
time."

She picked Napoleon out of the terra-cotta jar
and departed with her own nose at a haughty
angle, feeling, evidently, that she had accomplished
a retreat worthy of her burden. No such exit
was possible for Tom, who sat silently on his
portieres, hopelessly entangled in sash -curtains,
hungry, sulky, and deprived of even such relief
as his bursts of rhetoric afforded him by the
absence of any audience, for Bell had tactfully
removed the objects of parental criticism, and the
miscellaneously crowded hall was his alone.

But the ten minutes gloom which shrouded him
till Susy appeared forgivingly, staggering under a
heart-warming tray of fragrant beefsteak and cof
fee, buttered rolls and jam tarts, was not without
its momentous effect; for a week later, when, in his
own metaphor, the smoke of battle had cleared
away, when the soap-dish and sponge-rack no
longer polluted the sideboard, and each function

41

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

of life was restored to its normal scene, Tom seized
the occasion of a Saturday afternoon family stroll
about the estate for opening his mind upon what
he had evidently come to regard as an important
subject.

"Susy," he said abruptly, "when is Binks going
to school?"

The direct and unadorned nature of this remark
would have indicated to any one acquainted with
Mr. Wilbour s methods that he was extremely
doubtful as to its effects on the listener, but quite
determined to pursue the matter. This attitude
on his part was, however, entirely unnecessary,
for Susy, to his surprise, replied meekly: "Why,
whenever you say, Tom dear. Do you want him
to go now?"

Relieved by this active co-operation, Tom
relaxed and descended to explanation.

"I don t doubt it s all right, you know, to put it
off for girls as long as you want it probably
doesn t make any difference. But Binks is a boy,
you see, dear, and he is getting just a little . . .
well, just a little ..."

"I suppose so," said Susy thoughtfully. "He
certainly is a boy."

"You think so yourself, don t you, Toots?"

"I I suppose so," Susy admitted, "though I
did want to try keeping him out a year or two

42

"IT KEEPS THEIR MINDS BACK, TOM, AXD THAT S BETTER
FOR THEM "

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

more every one seems to think it s better, nowa
days."

"But why?" Tom demanded. "I know you
said that last year, but what s the point ?"

"Why, it keeps their minds back, Torn, and
and that s better for them, you know."

"Why?" her husband repeated obstinately.
"Don t they need all the mind that s coming to
them?"

Oh, of course, Tom. Don t be silly ! But don t
you remember that awfully clever woman we met
at the Upsons , that writes those beautiful stories?
She has a little girl, you know, and she said herself
that if the child ever learned to count more num
bers than she was years old, she was going to spank
her! You see what she thinks about it."

"Yes, I see," replied her husband coldly, "and
I also see that I don t give a continental hang for
her and her books. You mark my words, Toots,
if ever you hear a darn-fool thing to-day, you can
make up your mind that some woman said it that
writes books. They re sure to. Who wrote those
books about bringing up children that Aunt Em
was always studying when she lived with us?
Women. Who lectured those imbecile lectures
you used to hand out good money for? Women.
Who got up those clubs that made you all fight
with each other, so that I hadn t a place to go to
4 45

TUB BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

for a decent game of bridge ? Women. It ought
to be a crime for any woman to have children that
writes books."

"I don t believe they do, most of them," Susy
interpolated vaguely if soothingly. "But there s
that German man, Tom, that Aunt Emma went to
hear lecture he wasn t a woman. And he said
he never went to school till he was twelve. And
now he s a professor at Harvard."

"I ll bet he is," said Mr. Wilbour disgustedly.
"If they don t write books they re always pro
fessors. That s the idea exactly. Or magazine
editors. Do you know, he demanded indignantly,
"that that little man with the rough-rider hat
that s always trying to tell me how to play my
own hand I pointed him out to you last week
actually gave me a long lecture about taking the
kids out every morning and dropping them into
the brook ? He said it would make hardy citizens
of em. He tried to get me to promise I would.
I thought he had six of his own at least, and I
hoped they d turn out hardier than he is he s
always cursing about his digestion. And what
do you think? He s an editor of the ladies
Own Monthly, and never had a child in his life!
Writes articles on tatting and how to make a
nice apple-pie without any apples, I haven t a
doubt!"

46

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

Susy giggled.

"Perhaps that s why those recipes are so bad,"
she added contemplatively. "I never could get
one to come out fit to eat."

They leaned over a misshapen rail-fence, rain-
and-weather washed to a lovely, silvery violet,
and watched Martin and Thomas gather dandelions.
Martin made a neat bouquet of his, but Thomas
followed the more original method of snapping
them off at the head and sitting on them firmly,
to make sure of them.

"There s a nice little kindergarten in the
village," Susy began, after a contented pause.
"It must be nice, because Doctor Partridge s
little girl goes and the Ballantynes two children.
They drive in three miles for it. The woman sent
me a note. It s only from nine to half-past eleven
in the morning, and they do hardly anything but
play out-of-doors with a trained teacher, too.
They can have broth at ten, if you want them to.
They study nature, mostly."

Tom snorted and was only too evidently about
to begin a speech, but his wife checked this with
a clever flank movement.

"But you have to promise they sha n t play
with those scroll-saw puzzles," she concluded
hastily, "for Mrs. Trayner thinks they are far too
stimulating for any child under ten. You can

47

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

have square blocks, if there are only cows and
things like that to make with them."

"Can you play hide-and-seek?" Tom inquired
respectfully. "That s an awful nervous strain,
sometimes."

"Of course. The teacher is to teach them all
those games, Tom. And they learn them in the
proper order. It makes a great difference, she says.

"For the Lord s sake!"

Tom ceased his efforts to imitate upon a grass-
blade the crowing of a cock, and stared at his in
nocent offspring, who were shamelessly antedating
professional instruction by an elaborate and fairly
successful imitation of a baseball nine.

"Do you mean that I m to pay her perfectly
good money to teach Binks how to play jack-
stones?" he asked resignedly.

"I don t believe she d let him play jack-stones
when he s only six," Susy answered thoughtfully.

"Listen to me, Susan Wilbour," he announced,
"I will send the boy there, but on one condition.
If they don t take his temperature before he be
gins to learn squat-tag, I ll sue them!"

It is to be doubted if this ultimatum was con
veyed to Mrs. Trayner, but at nine o clock on the
very next Monday the name of Martin Brinkerhoff
Wilbour was formally entered upon that lady s
books, and the owner of the title left the home-

48

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

circle, as it were, for those broader fields of effort
that must, in the natural course of events, con
tinue to be his earthly portion. He was driven
thither by Susy, who proposed to usurp the
privileges of the coachman-gardener during good
weather and to conduct Tom to his not-too-im
possibly-early train, to his great delight and the
almost equal pleasure of the coachman-gardener.

Martin sat importantly on the little seat so
miraculously adapted to his needs, and Tom
directed the course of the steed, whom he had in
sisted upon rechristening Fido. The extinction
of his early title had made no difference whatever
to the animal who, as Tom said, by any other name
would go as fast, inasmuch as he never altered his
gait under any circumstances.

The air was clear and balmy, the roomy old
buggy a sort of doctor s phaeton glistened with
fresh varnish and new harness, its side-lamps
winked and gleamed. Martin was attired in an
entirely new sailor suit of neat blue-and-white ;
an impeccable broad hat of creamy straw pro
tected his sleek and accurately parted hair. His
finger-nails were quite beyond criticism. The
scarf on Susy s new spring hat rivalled the new
spring sky; a fluffy white bow beneath her chin
pictured the clouds that flecked the blue above
her. Tom had doffed his winter derby for a light

49

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

gray felt affair which became him immensely in the
opinion of his household, and altogether it was a
decorative trio that met the train that morning.

Susy rilled the interval between Tom s depart
ure and the school-hour with judicious counsels,
calculated, from the maternal point of view, to set
her son firmly on the path to fame and fortune,
and Martin, deeply impressed by this plunge into
public life, listened amiably and promised largely.

They drew up before the modest little Colonial
house, which had all the air of a social function,
so numerous were the motors, governess carts, and
pony wagons on the neat round sweep of the en
trance drive. The young students, accompanied
for the most part by nurses, though there w r ere
three or four mothers present, were in the act of
descending from their various conveyances, and
the whole scene was unusually bright and cheerful.
Susy smiled at the pretty picture.

Suddenly there was a clatter of hoofs and a
reckless rattle of wheels, and a gay red grocer s
cart dashed by all the rest and drew up with a
nourish before the door. From among the kerosene
cans and baskets of assorted green stuffs there
leaped a young woman with a fat and serious in
fant held bundle wise under her arm. In front of
all the amazed circle she dashed, fell upon a sur
prised child, dragged him from the iron step where

5

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

he was poised somewhat perilously, and embraced
him wildly, crying as she did so:

"Oh, Martin, good-bye, good-bye! It s the last
time! Say good-bye to your own Bell, for you re
not her baby any more!"

Susy turned crimson with humiliation and
horror as Bell s excited sobs rent the air, but worse
was to come, for with an effort the nurse lifted her
dazed charge to her shoulder, dropped Thomas
by her side, and, pressing Martin to her breast,
waved her free hand dramatically at the spell
bound spectators.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"And I had him from the bottle!" she cried,
burying her face in his sailor collar.

This was too much for Martin, who raised his
voice and wept aloud, clinging to his anguished
nurse. But even as Susy lifted her ashamed
eyes his wails were drowned in the chorus of weep
ing that suddenly resounded from all sides, for
three of the nurses, overwhelmed by the subtle
tragedy, choked violently and hugged their
charges, who in turn bellowed sympathetically.
Two attendant mothers were obliged to resort to
their handkerchiefs, which upset their children
completely, and even a fat old coachman drew his
sleeve across his eyes as the touching scene de
veloped. Before her blush had faded the corners
of Susy s mouth were quivering dangerously, and
in a moment more she was clasping Thomas and
weeping with the rest ; so that all around that once
cheerful driveway arose the sobs and wails of the
most marvellously sudden transformation scene
the neat Colonial house had ever witnessed.

Mrs. Trayner, appearing on the porch with a
beaming smile and a happy, "Good-morning,
children! Is not this a bright, beautiful-
stopped short in terrified amazement at the ex
traordinary sights and sounds before her, and it
was some time before she was able to comprehend
them if, indeed, she ever really did this. No one

52

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

oi her patrons cared to risk the responsibility of
an explanation, and her expression of ill-concealed
surprise and pardonable curiosity lasted long
after the last damp, clinging child had been firmly
detached and headed for her door and the last hys
terical nurse braced into something like self-
control.

"Why are they all What is the matter?"
she had demanded nervously from an unmoved
mother who with her equally stoical daughter had
regarded the whole mad moment with the air of
a bored box-holder.

"Because a young woman jumped out of a
grocery cart and said that she had had that little
boy in the striped sailor suit from the bottle,"
this callous parent had replied satirically, and Mrs.
Trayner had shaken her head in puzzled depre
cation and herded her small scholars into the
house.

It could not be denied: the day had begun
badly. Long after Susy had forgiven the re
pentant Bell and driven her home did the morn
ing s cloud hang over Mrs. Trayner s School for
Young Children. Two, indeed, of the Young
Children failed utterly to recover their spirits and
burst into gulping sobs on the slightest provoca
tion, so that they had to be isolated in the dining-
room, as their attacks proved infectious to a

53

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

degree. The rest paid for their emotional de
bauch by nervous irritability and a tendency
to argument, aided, if the truth must be told,
by the injudicious comments of the new pupil,
who spoke his mind freely, with embarrassing
results.

"I think," said Mrs. Trayner alluringly, that
this little boy who has just come to join us at our
work and play would like to learn to make one
of these pretty chains."

She held up a series of rings of lemon-colored
paper strips, looped each into the other, the ends
neatly gummed with photographic paste, and
dangled it invitingly, but it proved an unfortunate
choice of bait.

"I don t think I want to," said Martin politely
but with decision.

"What! not a pretty chain like this?"

"I don t think it s pretty," he explained.

"But all the other little children think so,"
argued Mrs. Trayner appealingly.

"But I don t," he said firmly.

Several of the children had stopped by now
and regarded the two curiously: retreat would
have been shameful.

"Then suppose you learn to make some for
your mamma," suggested the teacher; "that is
what our little boys and girls do."

54

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

"She wouldn t like em, either, I don t think,"
said Martin patiently, but with a clearly flagging
interest. "Aren t there any toys here? I have an
engine at home."

"So hav e I!" shrieked a fat boy in a corner,
smearing his paste frightfully.

TME BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

"I ve got a parlor-car on mine: it tumbles over
like this," piped up a little girl with long dark
curls, falling abruptly under the table as she spoke,
to the great delight of her brother, who furtively
stepped on her while pretending to discover her
whereabouts.

By dint of equal parts of patience and main
strength, order was finally restored, and Martin,
after superhuman efforts, was induced to address
himself to the lemon - colored chain - work. He
proved an apt pupil, and Mrs. Trayner had already
begun to erase the black mark that had been
steadily growing against him in her estimation
before she left his side. In a very few moments he
was working as deftly as many an artist in chains
of long standing, and with a pat of encourage
ment the teacher left him and went on to the
advanced pupils who were engaged in the con
struction of rickety paper bird-cages. When next
she glanced at the new member his chain was so
incredibly long that she was forced to doubt the
neatness of its technique, and hastened to him,
expecting to find him smeared with paste, and
forecasting her fears audibly.

"No, there isn t too much paste on em," he
assured her affably; "there isn t none at all. I
made em without."

"But how could you have made them stick
56

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

together so, Martin dear? Listen, children, while
clever little Martin tells us ho\v he made the ends
of his strips hold together without using paste,"
cried Mrs. Trayner trustfully.

"I spit on em!" said Binks briefly, indicating
by an unspeakable gesture the method he had
employed, and in the disgusting fever of emula
tion which followed the session closed. . . .

Never in all her blameless career had it occurred
to Mrs. Trayner to have encountered the equal
of her latest acquisition, and the School for Young
Children developed undreamed-of tendencies un
der his moral impact. And yet, as she ruefully
assured his anxious mother, Martin was not a bad
boy. He had no vicious tendencies ; he was truth
ful, brave, and fairly industrious. His principal
fault, though Mrs. Trayner was not quite equal
to discussing this phase of his character, w T as his
disconcerting way of "blocking Frobel s game,"
in the irreverent language of his father. No soon
er did this great educator announce a basic theory
of child nature than Binks completely annihilated
this theory. His caustic comments chilled the
hitherto satisfactory games; his contemptuous
criticism of the helpful little contests rendered the
participants idiotic in their own eyes ; the peculiar
school of poetry consecrated to this form of
education proved all too bald and unadorned for

57

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

his riotous fancy, and his reckless, not to say
vulgar, emendations shocked the teachers as
much as they delighted the children; last, but not
least, the constructive art-features of the system
found and left him strangely cold. Let those
who would raise shrill voices of praise at the evolu
tion of some unequalled complication of red-and-
blue shiny paper the voice of Binks was not
among the chorus. Like the person in the poem,
he seemed to be whispering, "It s clever but
is it Art?"

Nevertheless, some unnamed instinct impelled
him to the ceaseless production of the ill-fated
chains with which he had christened his educa
tional career, and unending yards of blue, red, and
yellow stickiness filled the house. It would have
been against every kindergarten canon to destroy
these monuments of youthful toil and filial de
votion, and they soon formed the main decoration
of the bedroom floor of his home. The loathsome
baubles draped bureau and bed, wall-space and
window - frame. They dangled on Susy s head
till she shrieked with nervous terror, they fell into
Tom s bath and twined about his brushes. Thomas
ate them in preference to any other form of
nourishment, and dried and disconnected segments
of them rolled down the stairs and fell out of
the windows. It was like some horrible Biblical

58

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

plague and so far as Mrs. Trayncr knew, Frobel
afforded no antidote. In all that great System
there was no way to stop Martin Wilbour from
manufacturing paper ehaiiis!

It is doubtful if anything short of the inter
vention of the Federal Government would have
freed the house of Wilbour from this incubus had
it not been for the opportune arrival of Aunt
Emma. No longer a member of the family of
her niece and nephew who were as dear to her
as if they had been her own children she was
yet far from the status of any ordinary guest, and
her tactful suggestion that the looped horrors
should be sent in quantity to the Crippled Chil
dren s Home called forth a storm of enthusiastic
approval, although Tom s gloomy fear that the
crippled children would henceforth be handi
capped by imbecility as well dimmed Susy s
pleasure for a moment.

Aunt Emma s interest in intellectual systems
was as keen as ever, and not many days had passed
before she had thoroughly inspected Martin s
school and returned characteristically impressed
by Mrs. Trayner who, it must be owned, was
quite accustomed to impress everybody but Mar
tin Wilbour. She had found the conduct of the
educational institution almost flawless, Susy
decided from her report. Almost, but not quite;

59

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

for Tom had read large print at five, and his father,
one gathered, read with expression and marked
selective powers from the Scriptures at the age
of four. Aunt Emma confessed that in her
opinion a little less paper bird-cage and a little
more First Reader would seem to hold out more
hope for the future. In vain her niece recounted
to her the dangers of excessive and premature
cerebral stirmilation ; in vain Tom cited sar
donically the case of the book -writing woman
and her spanked daughter Miss Wilbour was
firm.

Is anything the matter with Tom ? she
demanded. Was ever a word spoken about
my brother Thomas s brain ? He might make
those clay eggs, too but he could learn to
read!"

However, Susy obtained her loyal promise not
to teach him, for a reading member was as hope
lessly banished from Mrs. Trayner s Young Chil
dren as the unwise virgins from the Bridegroom,
and there was no other such select establishment
in sight. She promised, too, not to impart the
terrors of Bluebeard till the proper age for that
indispensable classic (eight to nine years) , and sub
mitted to a graded list of nursery favorites for
home narration, whose only weak point was that
Martin refused to listen to the selections judged

60

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

suitable to his time of life, and listened to the
others from Bell, whom no one had thought to
warn.

After this almost irreparable error Susy grew r
a very gorgon of forethought, and chancing upon
the waitress arranging some hitherto harmless
lettered blocks to form the word " cat," confiscated
them all, and included in a moving address nurse,
cook, and housemaid, obtaining from them a
solemn vow to keep Master Martin from undue
cerebral excitation, as far as in them lay, picturing
so vividly the shame of his expulsion from his
present seat of learning as to draw tears from the
cook s eyes.

Mother Goose, that ageless classic of the nursery,
was not banned, however, though a distinct re
serve was recommended in the matter of those
poems dealing with sudden and violent death.
This, unfortunately, mutilated the volume ap
preciably, as the maternal Goose resembles all
early national bards in a slashing disregard for
the finer feelings of a neurasthenic generation,
and Aunt Emma complained that it was hard
to interest her great - nephew in the expurga
ted edition. He knew them all by heart, and
it sometimes chilled his mother to the marrow
to mark the natural manner in which he held
the volume, cleverly deducing the rhymes from

5 6l

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

the attendant
pictures, and de
claiming with ab
solute acciiracy
for astonishing
lengths of time.

His father, on
one of these oc
casions, turned
from a spirited
rendering of Sim
ple Simon to ask
abruptly, "Did
you notice he says
ayny for any ?
He says, Indeed,
I haven t ayny.

He never hears it pronounced like that, does

he?"

"Why, no, I suppose not," Susy replied vaguely;

"he ll outgrow r it, anyway."

"What makes him say that one about a dillar,

a dollar, a ten-o clock scholar so slowly?" Tom

pursued.

"Because he s trying to remember it, I suppose.

I didn t know he knew that one. They learn so

quickly. Aunt Emma must have read that to

him."

62

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"No, I didn t, Susy," said Aunt Emma; "that s
in a new rag book, and we haven t gone over it
yet."

"It was Bell!" cried Martin hastily. "Bell,
she told it to me!"

Tom looked thoughtful, but said no more. On
the next Saturday he appeared with a new and
gorgeous rag book, filled with animals of every
hue, and presented it to his youngest son.

"Binks talk picshures to Thomas Binks talk
book!" the little fellow begged.

"But Binks doesn t know those pictures,
darling: that s a new book. Give to mother
mother talk," said Susy.

"Oh, Binks knows all those Bell has read them
all to him in other books," Tom answered careless
ly, at which Martin s face brightened, and he
seized the book, turned it right side up, and
recited, in loud, didactic tones, to the enraptured
Thomas :

" Look at our bon-ny brown cow!
Give us some milk, bos-sy, now.
Do not turn pale
When she swishes her tail,
For she is a gentle old cow!"

"Don t say swyshes, Martin; it s swishes ,"
said Susy. "What a nice story! How well you
know it!"

63

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"He knows it about as well as you do!" Tom
shouted. Binks, you little rascal, the game is up !
Susy, that boy will be President some day, as sure
as fate."

"Tom Wilbour, what do you mean? What s
the matter?"

Tom snatched the book from his son and tossed
it at Susy.

"It s just published to-day!" he cried. "Bell
never read it to him because she never saw it
nor anybody else. My dear, that little devil can
read as well as as as anything!" he concluded
lamely but triumphantly.

Confused, convicted, Martin faced them like a
mouse at bay. Susy stared accusingly at Aunt
Emma.

"And you promised!" she said reproachfully.

"And I kept it," Miss Wilbour replied proudly.
"I never had the least idea he could read, Susy!"

"It was Bell, then."

"Indeed it was not, then, Mrs. Wilbour! Again
and again I ve refused to show him dog and
cat with the blocks!" cried Bell indignantly.
"But I ll bet I know who did it! So that s why
you were off at the barn so much, and me thinking
all the time you were with the animals, like your
teacher said was so fine for you! Oh, but you re
the sly one! I might have known. I always

64

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

said there was something underhand about Myron
Plummer, and now he s taught you to read!"

"He said I d surprise my ma," Martin ventured
tentatively.

"And so you have," Tom said, choking with
laughter at Susy s dazed face and Aunt Emma s
tragic eyes, "so you have, Binks, and your pa too,
though not so much. Cheer up, Toots it might
be worse, you know! He can live it down: many
of us have."

"And I took such pains with everybody," poor
Susy began. "And then to learn from the hired
man! Oh, my dear, what a judgment!"

Aunt Emma s tones vibrated with horror.
Again Tom choked.

"It s one on us," he admitted cheerfully.
"Well, Binks, you re dished, so far as the Young
Children are concerned that s certain! Never
mind, my boy. Run up and bring down your
Differential Calculus, and then we ll have a page or
two from dear old Homer before we go to bed.
College opens in the fall, you know!"

Ill

WHICH DEALS WITH THE EDUCATION OF NATURE

JUSY S was a disposition far too hon
est to attempt to conceal from Mrs.
Trayner the black truth of her un
happy son s indefensible excursions
into literature; and in accordance
with the immitigable rules of that lady s estab
lishment, in comparison with which the regula
tions of the Medes and Persians faded into in
definite and elastic by-laws, the name of Martin
Brinkerhoff Wilbour was, with decent expressions
of regret, expunged from the rostrum of the
School for Young Children, and his little arts-and-
crafts oaken work-table knew him no more. It
would be untactful to delve too thoroughly into

66

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

the depths of this regret: the proprieties were
fully observed, and on the first day of his absence
the central chandelier was touchingly draped with
paper chains of the missing student s own manu
facture. But to deny that the teaching force of
the School for Young Children drew its first easy
breath for several weeks would be to suppress the
mere truth, and no one could have failed to observe
that the exercise of the day glided to a neat and
decorous finish as they had not done since one no
longer there first disturbed their even tenor.

Susy, who had accepted in their entirety the
rulings of the institution and had been secretly
more moved by the dictum of the Upsons book-
writing friend than she had admitted to her hus
band, was sincerely shocked at her son s dis
ingenuous methods of mental development, and
refused to condone his offence or listen to any
further exhibition of his powers. She even exact
ed from him a solemn promise not to impart his
ill-gotten learning to his innocent brother, and
looked thoroughly pained when Aunt Emma be
trayed her own irrepressible satisfaction in her
nephew s achievements, t

"But it didn t hurt Tom!" the good lady re
iterated with puzzled emphasis. "I can t see, Susy,
why you feel so badly about it. Anybody would
think the poor child had committed a crime!"

67

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"Things are different now, Aunt Emma," the
young matron assured her with an evident sense
of restraint.

"Ye-es," Aunt Emma admitted unconvinced,
"but if anything, I should think they d have to
begin earlier there s so much more to learn. And
especially boys," she added decidedly- "auto
mobiles and air-ships and wireless telegraphy, and
all that, you know. And yet there are all the old
things, too. Martin will have to learn all that Tom
did, and more besides goodness knows how much
more, if Mr. Edison keeps on inventing all the
time!"

"You think so, Aunt Emma, but that s just
where you re wrong!" cried her niece triumphant
ly. "That s just the point. Binks won t have to
learn what Tom did. A lot of that silly stuff was
only a w r aste of time, and the most advanced
schools don t teach it now. Look at the way I
cried over that nasty old Compound Interest at
Miss Crammer s and what earthly good did it
ever do me or any of the girls ? And geography
is so different now."

"Different ?" queried Aunt Emma. "You mean
they ve discovered more in that empty part of
Africa things like that?"

"No, no," said Susy impatiently, "I mean the
way they teach it. I was lunching with Minnie

68

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

Sears yesterday, and she was telling me about
Dorothy s geography. You know they don t
bound things any more and they don t use a book
much, anyway."

"What do they use?" Aunt Emma asked in
bewilderment.

"Why, they take them for walks, and then they
see about hills and valleys, and then the lake in
Central Park, you know, and after it rains there
are little rivers that flow through the mud you
can do it with the end of your umbrella," Susy
explained, evidently quoting vigorously.

"But I can t see how taking them to walk in
the Park is going to teach them where where
Costa Rica is, and the Amazon, and and all such
places, Susy," Aunt Emma argued plaintively.

"Minnie says that Dorothy s teacher says that a
person can live a happy, cultured life without
knowing the whereabouts of many places once
considered necessary," Susy returned glibly, "and
I believe Costa Rica is one of them, Aunt Emma!
When I remember the awful times I went through,
bounding those foolish countries in South America,
it makes my head ache now!"

Aunt Emma said nothing, but appeared un
convinced, and Susy went on, with the absorption
in her subject that always marked a new idea with
her:

69

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

"Then history, Aunt Emma. They have such
a nice idea about teaching it : at that luncheon of
Minnie s there was a cousin of hers that lives in
Concord, and she was telling how her children learn
history. The teacher just takes them out to
walk, and they visit all the historical places, and
then they go by trolley to Lexington, and see the
very spots where it all happened. And they go in
and study about Bunker Hill right on the spot."

"Um!" said Aunt Emma doubtfully. "That
may be all very well for Concord, Susy, because a
great deal of history happened there. But I don t
know what the children would have done in
Taylorsville, Illinois. Uncle James Taylor found
ed that town himself, and there wasn t much his
tory going on there except what Uncle James and
the other men made and they were in business
mostly," she added thoughtfully.

A loud burst of laughter from the hall greeted
this contribution to contemporary pedagogics, and
Tom hurried in and clapped his aunt heartily on
the back.

"There s where you win hands down, Aunt
Em!" he cried joyously. "Go on, both of you!
I ll be referee and bottle-holder and

I don t know what you mean by bottle-holder,"
his wife interrupted with dignity. "You could
never begin to hold six, like those wire ones that

70

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

Bell had for Thomas! And I think it s perfectly
horrid of you to listen out there when I m talking!
It makes me feel so silly. And it s nothing I in
vented, anyway, Tom Wilbour, and I don t feel at
all like kissing you when you are laughing at me.
If you could hear what some other mothers think
about what their children ought not to know,
you d find that I was very moderate ve-ry
mod-e-rate in-deed!" Susy declaimed breathlessly.

"Well, you re not moderately good-looking,
anyway," her husband replied, with a calm con
viction that dismissed all suspicion of a purposely
tactful answer ; " is she, Aunt Em ? You look about
eighteen I m so glad you don t get white with
anger, Toots, like people in books! What do the
other mothers think?"

Relenting a little as who would not? Mrs.
Wilbour sat upon the arm of his wicker porch-
chair (they were trying to believe that summer had
come) and continued earnestly:

"Well, that woman what is her name, Aunt
Emma? I read you a beautiful story of hers in
one of the new magazines this month: that one
about the child that didn t die, finally that
woman, Tom, that said she d spank her little girl,
you remember

"For Heaven s sake, are we to have another
dose of that woman?" Tom sighed and stretched

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

his legs enduringly. Well, get it over. What s
her trouble, now? Child learned to come in when
it rains, by mistake?"

"Not at all," his wife replied with dignity.
"That little girl is eight years old, and has never
been inside a school nor had a governess. All she
is learning is riding and swimming. She is leaping
bars now and diving. Her mother is going to
keep her back as long as possible."

"Well, I wish her luck," said Tom briefly.
"It s a pity the kid didn t take after its mother:
if it had turned out as dippy as she is, there
wouldn t be any difficulty in keeping it back
the trouble would be to keep it out of the asy
lum!"

"I think that is simply wicked, Susy," Aunt
Emma added decidedly. "The child won t thank
her for such treatment later, let me tell you ! She
should send it to school immediately."

"Ah, indeed!" cried Susy. "And supposing she
did, Aunt Emma? What do you think it would
learn there ? There was a friend of that cousin of
Minnie s that lives in Concord at the luncheon,
and she told us what her boy was studying. What
do you think it was?

"What?" Aunt Emma, asked breathlessly, for
it was characteristic of the good woman that her
interest in each new theory of life was as un-

72

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

quenchable as if she had never disgustedly aban
doned each in turn.

"And a very expensive school, too," Susy
added impressively, "and most select. Only the
very best Boston families."

She faced them defiantly, for Tom and Aunt
Emma were both against her now, and checked
each subject off on a pointing, rosy finger.

"Bee-keeping; etching on copper; fancy dan
cing, and Greek history!" she enumerated solemn
ly, and their awe-struck countenances assured her
she had not lunched with Minne Sears in vain.

"By Godfrey!" Tom muttered, shaking his
head "by Godfrey, Toots!"

Aunt Emma arose, and shook out her skirts
thoroughly her method of exhibiting utter res
ignation.

"Well, Susy," she said, "of course it is no
affair of mine, but if that is the idea nowadays,
I must say I agree with Mrs. Trayner that Martin
would develop quite as well for another year with
Nature and the animals!"

To Nature and the animals, accordingly, Mar
tin was consigned; and as no one ever caught
Nature in the act of administrating any specific
instructions, so to speak, it was impossible to
quarrel with the first of these great teachers.

But it is only just to Mrs. Trayner to conclude
73

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

that she had never employed many animals upon
her own Faculty; nor, indeed, associated to any
great extent with those humbler brothers of the
human race. In this easy disposal of responsi
bility, however, the lady does not stand alone,
for one famous professor of ethics has summarily
sent more than one sluggard to an insect proved
by modern scientists and philosophers only too
little capable of affording a valuable example to
any practical person; and if Solomon mistook
his data, how shall Mrs. Trayner be blamed for
inaccuracy ?

It might be urged, moreover, that the stock of
animals in the Wilbour s possession failed to repre
sent the brute creation adequately. But for this
the young people were hardly responsible, as, with
the exception of Fido the horse, all were gifts.
Tom s senior partner, on learning of the contem
plated country exodus, had enthusiastically pre
sented his colleague with a pair of spotty black-
and-white hounds, of the genus known in the
country as "carriage dogs." Naturally, Tom
had accepted them thankfully, though he had
planned for an Irish terrier, and Susy had set her
heart upon a Russian w r olf-hound. Two dogs,
however, were considered sufficient, particularly
as in recommending these two to the family s
affections the senior partner had impressed upon

74

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

Tom the fact that they were none too friendly
to other dogs, and apt to be jealous, even, of
visiting pets. Their names were "Happy" and
"Dapple," but these were soon modified by their
new master to "Lappy" and "Drabble," which
better described their habits of respectively crawl
ing into every known variety of filth and leaping
onto the knees of every one, notwithstanding a
weight of fifty-odd pounds.

Martin, like every healthy boy of six, pined for
a goat and cart, and it had been one of Susy s
cherished plans to buy him one as soon as they
should get into the country. It was with the
most unaffected pleasure, therefore, that she
learned of the expressed intention of her son s
godmother to present him with one. She, her
self, had looked no higher than the ordinary
short-haired goat of commerce, and was much
impressed when an enormous shaggy creature,
dripping with cream - colored, curly locks that
trailed to the ground, and horned elaborately, ap
peared before their humble gate, accompanied by
a fresh and brilliantly scarlet equipage, at sight
of which Martin had screamed for joy.

Around the goat s neck was a label which read,
I come to darling Binks, from Godmother, with
hopes for a happy future together." But after an
attempt to detach this label had nearly cost Tom

75

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

an eye, and when an equally ill-advised essay on
Myron Plummcr s part to hiteh the beast to its
cart rendered their hired man s right arm useless
for a week, Tom decided that the future referred
to must have been a heavenly one, though if
the goat s share in this was at all assured, Mr.
Wilbour was convinced that all he had learned
in youth about the place was entirely errone
ous.

The animal s name was Mildred, and as it was
perfectly aware of this, and was a goat of great
determination and fixity of character, it was use
less to change it to any one of the many more
suitable titles that readily occurred to the Wil-
bours. Mildred turned out to have been pur
chased second-hand, at a great reduction, by Mar
tin s godmother, who, with an unfortunate lack
of practicality, had neglected to inquire the rea
sons for such cheapness not that she would have
been cheap at any price in Myron Plummer s
possibly prejudiced opinion, to whose enlightened
mind no reasons were required. Any further at
tempt to hitch her to her cart would be, obviously,
as reckless as futile, and she roamed the orchard,
remarkable only for her superfluity of hair and
ungovernable disposition. Nevertheless, Susy re
garded the purchase of another and more amena
ble of her class as the wildest extravagance, and

76

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

poor Martin was wont to regard her wistfully from
afar, vainly endeavoring to propitiate her with
offerings of carrots and sugar, which he was
obliged to deposit on a certain rock of the wily
animal s own selection, previous to a hasty escape
from the wrath to come, for she detested children,
and was perfectly frank about it.

Aunt Emma herself was responsible for the
next pet. She had observed a small and dis
pirited donkey dragging stones from an old wall
in what had once been, evidently, a handsome
little two-wheeled cart; and heartbroken at the
cruel treatment of the little beast, who was
beaten steadily by the half-grown boy in charge
6 77

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

of it, she had complained of this to the boy s
father. This gentleman, a foxy-faced teamster
in dirty corduroys, agreed with her heartily as to
the severity of his son s methods, but explained
them (with a sly glance at Martin, who was
with her) by the fact that the beast was really
a child s pet and not at all a working animal, but
that having purchased it for this purpose and
been cruelly deceived, he felt himself too poor
to forego the services of the donkey, and was
compelled, much against his will, to witness this
degradation of a fine, well -broken, gentle play
mate for some fortunate son of a wealthier parent
than he.

"Gentle?" Aunt Emma repeated hopefully,
with visions of the unspeakable Mildred.

The teamster s son was promptly dispatched
for a carrot and a bit of bread, and the enrapt
ured Martin fed these to the undoubtedly well-dis
posed little creature. A moment later he was
sitting on its back in triumph, and its easy pace
and deliberate rate of progress were perfectly
convincing, even to a maiden aunt.

"A lick o paint on that cart, ma am, a bolt here
and there, and new cushions, and the President s
sons might be proud to sit in it!" observed the
owner of the cart dispassionately.

"But but the expense of its food," Aunt
78

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

Emma urged. "I should not feel justified in
charging any one with that, even with a gift."

"It s plain you ain t used to a jackass, ma am,"
replied the teamster pityingly; "the windy side
of a barn is what the saying is for them, ma am.
No one don t ever expect to lay out a penny on
a jackass. I assure you of that."

It was quite evident that he practised what he
preached, for the poor little creature s ribs were
clearly defined, and its hungry nosing of Martin s
fingers showed the unaccustomed nature of its
little luncheon.

When Aunt Emma found that twenty dollars
would purchase both donkey and cart, she struck
the bargain instantly, and both purchases ap
peared before the surprised heads of the house
in short order.

Susy was much pleased, and a week, during
which time Cousin Albert (for Tom had insisted
on christening the new pet on the strength of an
undoubted resemblance in expression) gained a
little in weight, saw him obediently dragging a
new painted cart around the driveway. To be
sure, the bill for painting, varnishing, repairing,
adding reins, whips, and cushions, was of a nature
to be carefully concealed from Aunt Emma; but,
as Tom said, a pet that neither leaped at your
throat nor sought to impale you on its horns

79

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

was worth something, and Cousin Albert was far
from these or any other ferocious courses. In
deed, so meek was he that Susy, after seeing him
fall between the shafts, apparently from over-
exertion, after a dozen circuits of the driveway,
sternly forbade his further use till he had got
a little stronger and outgrew the teamster s ill
usage, and he was fed almost constantly by the
eager children and the kindly servants. When
not thus engaged he was absorbedly cropping
grass, and Martin, who, with the connivance of
Myron Plummer, stole several furtive rides upon
his daily-broadening back, observed a growing
tendency to restlessness in Cousin Albert, coupled
with a contrary tendency to stand perfectly still
for minutes together, discouraging in the extreme
to a young rider. While things were in this state
a week s heavy rain kept everybody away from
him, and on the heels of this a widespread epi
demic of measles frightened Susy into sending
Bell with both the children to her sister for three
weeks, taking this occasion, herself, for many long-
promised little visits to old friends. Aunt Emma
took care of the house, and Tom, who had begun
to be a little overworked, spent most of his free
hours at his club, running out wherever Susy
might be for little holidays now and then.
Nothing could have been more to Cousin
80

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

Albert s fancy, and he ate steadily for twenty
hours out of the twenty-four, assisted enthusias
tically by Aunt Emma, who marked with delight
his sleek and rounding sides and stoked him like
a furnace. She wrote delightful letters about
him to Martin, who skipped with joy and ordered
him to meet himself and his brother at the station
and convey them home.

But only Myron Plummer met them, driving
the faithful Fido. As he descended and handed
the reins to Susy, who was to drive the children,
leaving Bell to walk the scant mile from the
station with the friendly hired man, Martin in
quired somewhat sulkily why Cousin Albert had
not complied with his request. The result was
disconcerting, for Myron Plummer burst into a
loud guffaw that startled every living thing within
hearing, and slapped his leg with such force as to
nearly throw himself over.

"Cousin Albert!" he bellowed with rich en
joyment "Cousin Albert! Oh yes! I guess
so!"

"What do you mean, Myron? What is the
matter with the donkey?" Susy inquired with
dignity, while the children held their breaths
with anxiety.

Matter ?" cried Myron Plummer. Why, Mis
Wilbour, that durn little jackass has et him-

81

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

self so near the bustin - point that you couldn t
no more get him inter them shafts than you could
n el phant. No, nor never will, if you ask me.
He s a reg lar butterball ! And frisky ? My Lord !
you can t get near him to touch him, let alone
harness him. Martin better watch out for his
heels, I tell you! He s a terror, he is Cousin
Albert! Yes, I guess so!"

They left him shouting with his rural mirth,
and a little later regarded the subject of his out
burst wistfully, but not too near. For Cousin
Albert had waxed fat and kicked, like his Script
ural predecessors ; and though his extra food was
strictly cut off, there was no way of keeping him
from the grass but muzzling, and as no one could
be found who would volunteer to do this, he
swaggered about the pasture lot, sleek and scorn
ful, so utterly at variance w r ith his narrow little
shafts that Tom professed to believe he had
never fitted them, and had been artificially reduced
in order to make their use possible.

To Mrs. Trayner, who, on the occasion of her
school s closing, was making a semi-professional
call on Susy, Cousin Albert appeared picturesque
to a degree, and she declared herself quite cap
tivated by his gentle gambols, and begged per
mission to escort the School for Young Children
to the pasture, in a body, the following autumn,

82

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

enlarging upon the conviction that nothing-
even her own justly famous method could ever
approach in educative value the reverent and mi
nute study of the domestic animals.

"In many ways," she added magnanimously,
"your dear little Martin, left, as you have left
him so wisely, to the simplest, greatest influences
of all, will learn much that we never could have
taught him, had he stayed-
She was interrupted by a terrible braying, a
wild "hee-haw! hee-ha\v! hee-haw!" that shocked
every sense, closely followed by an astonishing
ly accurate imitation of the cry of an angry
goat. A frightful clatter, an indescribable stam
pede that threw furniture and tea - cups to the
veranda floor, alternated with a series of mys
terious thuds, drove the blood from Mrs. Tray-
ner s cheek and alarmed even Susy for a mo
ment.

"The animals are on the porch!" cried the un
nerved guest, "but, thank Heaven, Mr. Wilbour
is coming up the path he can face them! Oh,
what is the matter with him?"

For Tom had stopped abruptly and stood star
ing in the direction of the house, evidently a prey
to mixed emotions. With a short, angry ex
clamation, Susy thrust open the French window
and stood upon the porch. About the floor an

83

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

animated fur rug appeared to be running amuck;
four stubby tan shoes supported it and confused
her, until she observed that sleeves were thrust
into two of these. A pair of flopping brown ears,
strangely familiar, but connected in her mind

with an old rocking-horse, waved at the forefront
of this creature ; its horrid brays afflicted the ear.
Staggering along behind it appeared a smaller
creature, neatly fitted into an Angora baby-
wagon blanket. Soiled white stockings were
drawn over the four legs of this beast, which ex-

84

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

hibited a tendency to lose its balance and roll
from time to time, though never stopping for a
moment its metallic and yet life-like bleating. At
regular intervals the two collided furiously, and
at such times the fur-rug beast would thud ter
ribly with its hind legs, perilously escaping the
head of the smaller combatant, to whom it yelled
breathlessly :

"Butt me! Butt me with your horns! Butt
harder, or I ll kick you! Hee-haw I Hee-haw I"

To which the smaller beast replied with a wild
"Ma-a-a-a! Ma-a-a-a!" and a head-on crash at
anything in sight, so that the wicker furniture
flew about until the porch resembled the reports
of a successful spiritualistic seance and the win
dows rattled in their frames.

Even as the horrified women advanced to them,
the smaller animal staggered toward the un
guarded guest and butted furiously at her knees;
she sank down with a shriek and an utterly un
intentional blow at the larger creature, who re
sponded with a bray of rage and an only too well
aimed and naturalistic kick. Susy, in a dash for
rescue, seized the Angora beast by a misleading
white stocking, thus bumping its nose badly;
it bit angrily at her ankle, and her agonized cry
brought Tom charging into the group, by now
almost inextricably entangled.

85

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

A few horrid seconds, and the worst was over.
Mrs. Trayner was established in a righted arm
chair, flushed and palpitating, one hand uncon
sciously holding in a grip of iron a brown rocking-
horse ear. Susy fled for tea and smelling-salts,
leaving her sons, crimson with heat and temper,
entirely at their father s mercy. And history
compels the statement that whatever may have
been Mrs. Trayner s professional attitude toward
corporal punishment, she, or some one wonderfully
like her in appearance, held Thomas Franklin
Wilbour in a rigid embrace until such time as his
father should have finished giving his brother the
most memorable spanking of his life and felt him
self free to begin on his youngest.

It would have ill become such a well-known
friend of infancy to bear malice, and Mrs. Trayner
assured the deprecating parents that she bore
none; but they could not but observe that she
declined, firmly though politely, Susy s visit of
apology, promised on the not - yet - presentable
brothers behalf.

Poor Susy felt very badly about it all, though
Tom s wrath had been dissipated by the spank
ing, and he was able to laugh at it that evening.
But their situations were quite reversed on the
occasion of his senior partner s visit.

Mr. Hartwell was a somewhat fat and fussy
86

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

gentleman, a confirmed city-dweller, whose idea
of the country is best described by the picture of
a wheeled chair on a board-walk. But he had
grown quite attached to his clever young junior,
was genuinely interested in the two spotty dogs,
which he seriously believed to be very valuable,
and anxious to gratify his childless wife with a
day of children s society. The visit opened ad
mirably: a perfect June day had brought out
Susy s peonies and early roses ; the children were
quietly napping through an unexceptionable
lunch a glut of new peas and strawberries and
tender lamb chops; there was neither mud nor
dust, either of which would have ruined Mrs.
Hart well s day, for she was a nervous, immacu
late little creature, a fanatic housekeeper, and
hopelessly in thrall to germs and imaginary in
fections of every sort in short, the Wilbour
household was at its best.

Susy had privately wondered, ever since the
advent of Drabble and Lappy, how Mrs. Hart-
well could have tolerated them for a moment,
until Tom enlightened her with the information
that the dogs had boarded in a very expensive
stable in the city, and been subjected to unheard-
of disinfectings and bathings before they were
permitted even to accompany Mr. Hartwell in his
morning constitutional through the Park.

87

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

That gentleman, serenely enjoying his coffee,
spoke for the second time of his one-time pets.

"And where are Happy and Dapple, Wilbour?"
he inquired genially. "Dapple, particularly, was
my favorite, though Mrs. Hartwell, I believe, al
ways slightly preferred Happy."

Susy glanced apprehensively at the snowy lengths
of solid embroidery and lace that clothed her visitor.

"The dogs are not quite dry I have just
had them washed," she replied, a little uneasily.
"Drab Dapple gets into rather messy places,
sometimes, and Lap Happy springs up on one,
now and then. Haven t you ever noticed it?"

"He never sprang up on me," Mrs. Hartwell
announced firmly, with such decision that Susy
determined that the lady s husband should inter
view his favorites alone.

"To tell the truth," said Mrs. Hartwell, "I am
much more interested, myself, in your dear chil
dren. Are we not to see them before we go?"

"Yes, indeed," returned the mother proudly,
with a contented consciousness of the little white
embroidered sailor suits, white stockings, and new
russet slippers that lay decorously at the foot of
Bell s bed.

"Bell, are the children awake yet?"

"Y-yes, Mrs. Wilbour, they re awake, but I
don t seem to find them, somehow," Bell an-

88

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

swercd guardedly. Martin said something about
getting his bones, and never came back from the
bath-room. And now Thomas has gone, too."

Getting his bones ? How amusing children
are!" Mrs. Hartwell exclaimed. "I suppose they
say things like that twenty times a day, and you
don t know what they mean."

"Yes no I suppose so," Susy responded
vaguely. Where could they be ?

Even as she spoke a sudden, frightful odor
floated into the dainty drawing-room, particularly
fresh and sweet to-day in recognition of Mrs.
Hartwell s known standards. This odor was not
entirely novel; rather did it appear to be com
pounded of many vaguely familiar but always
shunned ingredients, unconnected, however, with
drawing-rooms. Mrs. Hartwell sniffed audibly;
Susy endeavored not to. Then a succession of
stifled giggles was heard, the door moved slowly,
and the unspeakable odor became suddenly more
pronounced. At this point Susy should have
leaped forward, closed the door, and called loudly
upon Bell, and no one was quicker to acknowl
edge this, afterward, than she. But we have all
our weak moments, our Waterloos, and this was
undeniably poor Susy s. She sat fascinated, it
seemed, upon her neat Chippendale chair; her
lips moved, Tom assured her later, but no sound

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

issued from them. Tom, who had an unfortunate
summer cold, smelled nothing, and merely smiled
with paternal tolerance at the childish giggles.

Now a snarling yap, more giggles, a quick
scuffle, and the door flew fully open. Two fright
ful little objects, reeking with filth unmentionable,
scrambled on hands and knees into the room.
They were clad in diminutive pajamas, whose
original tint was absolutely unguessable, so
stained and dripping with every sort of refuse
were they. Between the teeth of each was held
a too evidently buried bone of enormous dimen
sions, and as they shuffled along they barked and
growled with wonderful realism.

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

Self-preservation is ever nature s first law, and
each member of that party shrank fearfully aside,
for a dazed moment, as the horrid, crawling ob
jects neared them. And in that moment the
smaller object raised itself, with a whiff of drains
and stables, and chuckled,

"Hello, man! I m Drabble. Man want Drab-
ble s bone?" and threw its vile bone with terrible
accuracy straight onto Mr. Hartwell s fresh, light-
gray summer suit.

Tom rushed for it, but paused a fatal second,
enough for the other unmentionable creature to
rise, barking, and, with an ecstatic shriek,

"I m Lappy! Love me! Love me!" to hurl
itself upon the shrinking embroidery of Mrs.
Hart well.

In kindness to the Wilbours the chronicler can
only, in the language of the early novelists, draw
a veil over what followed. Tom, with a hasty
glance at the tongs, abandoned the idea and de
tached his loathsome children bravely with his
hands.

Susy, at Mrs. Hartwell s faint request, disrobed
her where she sat, and escorted her tremblingly
to the bath-room, where she used a bottle of
Listerine and half a tin of borax. The children
were partially cleaned in the stable, and, at Mrs.
Hartwell s hysterical request, sprayed there with

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

carbolic. Everything was done that could be
done, but their guests evidently felt, with Lady
Macbeth, that it would take more than the per
fumes of Araby to mitigate the occasion, and it
required all Susy s persuasive powers to avoid a
solemn promise to bury the white embroidered
dress.

When they were fairly on their home train
poor Susy s overstrained nerves relaxed, and
she burst into wild laughter, joined, in spite
of himself, at least, by her exasperated hus
band.

Oh, do you think she still regrets that she has
no little ones?" Susy moaned.
Tom chuckled wrathfully.

"Probably not," he said; "but look here, all

the same, Toots
this can t go
any further. If
this is all Nature
is going to teach
Binks, then he d
better quit and
get into a state
of grace mighty
quick ! This is
awful."

I know, Tom.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

Of course, I m sure we ll do anything you say,"
she agreed meekly, wiping her eyes; "but they re
waiting in the stable, you know. What are you
going to do ?"

And two perplexed parents stared at Fido.

IV

WHICH DEALS WITH A TIMELY PROBLEM

OOTS," Mr. Thomas Wilbour be
gan abruptly, helping himself to
an enormous spoonful of orange
marmalade, and spreading it over
a bit of heavily buttered toast with
the leisurely accuracy possible only to holiday
breakfasts, "have you noticed anything out of
the way lately with Aunt Em?"

"With Aunt Em?" Susy repeated absent-
mindedly, dragging her youngest son dexterously
out from the coils of the electric table-bell, which
he rang furiously with every motion of his en
tangled feet (a disturbance which would have
softened the brain of any ordinary waitress, but

94

THE BIOGRAPNY OF A BOY

to which the Wilbours servants were thoroughly
accustomed). "Why, I don t think so, Tom. She
seemed very well to me. Martin, please don t
kick your chair so much, and you know very well
that those crusts will be saved for your dinner,
so you might as well eat them now!"

"I ll never eat none of them," said Martin
quietly, but very, very firmly. "I ll never eat
nothing, if it has to be them. Thomas, I ll kick
your head if you smell my boots again,"

95

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

Susy drew a long, resigned breath. This was
to be one of Martin s "days."

"There s no use arguing with him, Tom," she
interposed hastily, as her husband gulped his
marmalade down with a portentous expression ;
"when he gets to a certain point he knows what
he ll have to do, and he doesn t like it at all. So
he d better be careful."

Martin made no reply whatever, but ostenta
tiously cleaned bits of bread down to their crusts
and piled these latter in the shape of a log-cabin
by his plate.

"Binks no eat cushts, naughty Binks go
stwaighttobed," Thomas murmured tactfully,
edging with good generalship out of his brother s
way, but slightly miscalculating the reach of that
avenger s arm, so that a neat nip in the fleshy
part of his back elicited agonized squeaks from
the injudicious commentator and destroyed for
the moment the serenity of the morning meal.

It was the Fourth of July, and in honor of the
day Myron Plummer had early suspended the
emblem of his country from the neat white flag
pole that had for a week past adorned the side-
yards. This pole was masked for several feet of
its otherwise bare and undecorative surface by
a fortunate clump of syringas, an arrangement
somewhat ungratefully insisted upon by Mr. Wil-

96

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

hour before he would consent to accept the flag
pole, which was a recent gift from his aunt, and
made him feel, as he somewhat enigmatically
described it, like a German dentist, anyway, but
less so when the syringas partly covered the thing.
Pressed for an explanation, he had admitted that
a German dentist who had lived near him in boy
hood had owned and frequently used a flagpole,
and that he objected to the resemblance, but
as the position was somewhat untenable, he had
finally admitted its inherent weakness, and had
even, at Aunt Emma s insistence, purchased a
flag of proportionate size to attach to her gift.

"After all," Aunt Emma had urged, "the chil
dren are Americans, and as the public schools are
the only place where patriotism is taught, and
they aren t to go to them, they ought to learn
it at home. And the first step is a flag."

So, as has been said, the banner of his country
floated like a mammoth peppermint-stick in the
breeze when Martin and his brother sallied forth
to take the air after the somewhat tempestuous
scene which closed his breakfast and threatened
at one moment to banish his modest bundle of
fire-crackers from the programme of the day. To
any collection of adults unaccustomed to the con
stant presence of a pair of youths of six and two
years respectively, the scene of the breakfast,

97

THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY

whose harrowing details have been, in the in
terests of domesticity, repressed, would undoubt
edly have spelled nervous headache and an acute
attack of pessimism at the very least ; but to the
Wilbours it was but as the merest ripple on the
surface of family life, and passed as such, with
little comment.

Tom took another cup of coffee on the strength
of the interruption, and resumed his previous topic
with the ease which only long practice in this art
could have given him.

"About Aunt Em," he began "is it only my
idea, or isn t she just a little er well, just a
little ..."

"Why, what do you mean, Tom?" Susy was
honestly quite ignorant of whatever fine shades of
meaning her husband had intended to convey,
and he was forced to speak more plainly.

"I can t exactly think of the word I want,"
he began again; but at this simple statement
Susy gasped irrepressibly :

"Goodness! If you can t think of it, Tommy,
who in the world can ?"

Passing by this apparent tribute to his mental
powers with an airy wave of the hand, Mr. Wil-
bour continued:

"Maybe it s only me she favors, but I give you
my word, Toots, I haven t opened my mouth for

98

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

the last week that I haven t been been, well,
been sat on, you know!"

Susy scowled thoughtfully.

"Do you mean to say you haven t noticed it?"
he demanded.

"Why, now that you speak of it, I remember
that you have been rather argument

"Arguments!" Tom interrupted. "I believe
you! Heavens above, how can I help it, when she
talks such nonsense ? Am I or am I not supposed
to know whether or not a married woman can
control her property in this State?"

"Oh, well, what does it matter?" said his wife
philosophically. "I don t know how on earth
we got into the subject, anyhow."

"That s it that s just it!" Tom leaned tow
ard her dramatically, rolling his after-breakfast
cigarette with the air of a conspirator. "Don t
you observe that we re always getting into those
subjects ? Three or four days ago, what were we
scrapping over ? Oh, I know child labor. I
got it, hot and heavy, just because I said and
very properly that there were two sides to that
question, and that a great many ignorant people
were going to get themselves into a fine box if
they went around ventilating their half-baked ideas
about it without realizing what they were getting
at in the end with their crazy, sweeping reforms. "

99

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

"Well, I know; but why will you talk about
those sort of things, Tom?" And Susy glanced
out of the window and jumped nervously as the
first explosive bang assured the neighborhood
that the Independence of America was forever
memorialized in one faithful patriot s heart.

"I talk about them? I?" Tom swelled with
disgust. "What should I talk about em for?
I tell you it s Aunt Em. Toots, she s got some
thing up her sleeve! She s at it again you
mark my words. That s why she s always roping
me into some

Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!

A frantic wail from Thomas and abnormal si
lence on his brother s part struck terror to their
hearts, and they raced out to the flagpole to meet,
after all, a reassuring tranquillity, as the bangs
turned out to have been merely three unusually
successful celebrations of the day, and Thomas s
wail nothing more than his ingenuous protests
against the fate that confined him to paper tor
pedoes, which but feebly expressed, it would
seem, the patriotic emotions that stirred his
youthful breast.

They sat down comfortably under the syringas,
and Tom, after a few reminiscent whiffs of the
burning powder, yielded, like the war-horse, to
its seductions, and touched off a few of the fire-

100

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

crackers, to the great delight of his heirs. Aunt
Emma, who scorned late breakfasts, having taken
that meal, as she succinctly put it, for considerably
over half a century at half-past seven, now joined
them, crackling in a speckled black-and-white
morning dress, and commented favorably on the ef
fect of the flag and its undoubted educative results.

"And though I understand, of course, Susy,
your objections to those rough boys in the public
school, and the horrid things Martin would un
doubtedly learn there, still I must say that the
system is most excellent, and it is so beautiful to
see them all stand up and do that about my God,
my Home, and my Flag!"

"What do they do when they stand up?" Tom
inquired lazily, jerking his youngest back sudden
ly from a too-intimately conducted analysis of
that species of pyrotechnic known as a "sisser,"
an effect which the chief operator produces by
the simple process of bending a fire-cracker in the
middle and applying a light to the exposed and
bursting powder, with the pleasing result and al
most as pleasing uncertainty as to where the object
will jump, which might be expected from the
method employed.

"Why, they all rise," Aunt Emma explained,
herself suiting the action to the word, "and point
upward like this when they say my God ;

IOI

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

then, then well, really now, I can t remember
where they do point for my Home ; they can t
all point in different directions very well, now,
can they? It wouldn t be orderly "

"And then people move so often, too," Susy
added absent-mindedly.

Tom gazed with interest at Aunt Emma s sus
pended gestures, and suggested:

"Perhaps they put their hands on their hearts
you know home is where the heart is !"

"Well, anyway," Miss Wilbour resumed, "when
it s my Flag they kiss their hands all together
to the flag over Washington s picture, and it
really brings tears to your eyes, Tom, to see all
those little Jewish and Irish and Italian children
so patriotic!"

"Urn," said her nephew thoughtfully, "I don t
doubt it would have brought tears to Washing
ton s, Aunt Emma. But if you approve of it so
highly, why not teach it to the kiddies ? At least,
they d know where to point for my Home,
wouldn t you, boys?"

"That s a very good idea, Tom and Susy,"
Aunt Emma cried enthusiastically, "and it would
make a nice little ceremony for the day, too.
Now, just come over here for a moment, Thomas,
dear, and stand by Martin, so; stand up straight
and hold your heads up

IO2

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

"I have to tie m shoe," Martin grumbled sus
piciously; "let Thomas do it."

"Now, Binks, dear, don t be disagreeable,"
Susy interposed, "and don t begin to make ob
jections before you know what it is Aunt Emma
wants you to do, even."

"I don t care what it is I don t want to do it,"
said Binks flatly; "I m too big to kiss my hand.
I m six and a half."

"Stand up here, sir," Tom commanded short
ly, and Martin hurriedly assumed a lop-sided and
unconvincing pose next his brother, who braced
himself for the coming ordeal by stepping firmly
upon one foot with the other, thus throwing him
self forcibly upon the ground and requiring to be
untwisted before he could arise with any degree
of success.

"Now," said Aunt Emma, "we all say my
God together"

"Mother won t let me," Martin interrupted
doggedly.

"Won t let you? What do you mean, dear?"
Susy asked anxiously, her maternal imagination
requiring no aid in prophesying a strained and
unfortunate morning if things took no turn for
the better.

"That new Mary that cooks the things in the
kitchen says my God all the time, and when I

103

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

said, My God, Thomas, you ve lost your rubber,
you said if I said it again you d speak to my
father, and so I can t," he explained in injured
tones.

Tom turned his head, after the simple formula
in vogue among adults when they wish to conceal
inconvenient emotions from eyes sharper than the
average squirrel s, but Susy was too involved in
explanation to find time for mirth, and hastened
valiantly into the awkward discussion.

"No, no, dear, you don t understand. You
mustn t say it about Thomas s rubber, but this
is different. This is a a sort of a little speech
an address

"Whose dress?"

Oh, dear ! Aunt Emma, if you want the chil
dren to say it, I really think you might ex
plain it!"

"You are looking up into heaven, Martin and
Thomas," Aunt Emma began, "and so it is per
fectly proper to say my God. It s not at
all the way Mary says it. I m sure you know
why."

"Yes," Martin interrupted eagerly, with the
first evidence of interest he had yet show r n, "I
do, Aunt Emma."

"I thought so, dear," said she, with an irresist
ible glance of triumph at the child s parents

104

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

that concentrated essence of inquiry, peculiar to
the unmarried, as to why Providence has seen
fit to implant in their breasts alone that exclusive
comprehension of infancy so often displayed by
them. "Tell me why it is different."

"Because," Binks returned importantly, as
suming a Daniel Webster attitude, "you say my
Godd, and Mary says my Gawd !"

Again Tom turned his head, and this time Susy
sided openly with him, and Aunt Emma looked
the pain and disillusionment reserved for those
who grapple with the youthful mind.

"Well, at any rate, if we don t get at it, it will
never be done," she recovered herself briskly,
"and so don t let us argue any more, children,
but do it, if we re going to."

"I will if mother will," Martin bargained shame
lessly, noting his mother s relaxed air and sure of
his ground.

"Of course I will," Susy returned promptly,
"we all will father, too. Come on, Tom get
up!"

Somewhat unwillingly, but alive to the re
sponsibilities of his example, Mr. Wilbour arose
languidly and lined up with the other four
on the edge of the little slope behind the flag
staff.

"Now," Aunt Emma began approvingly, "all

THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

together, looking up look at the sky, Thomas,
dear now!"

And from the throats of the united Wilbour
family rang such an unexpected and thrilling
shout as would have made the fortune of any
stage-manager of Bowery melodrama.

"My God!" they cried, then ceased abruptly,
106

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

for the extraordinary and undreamed of effect of
the exclamation proved altogether too much for
two of the performers, and Tom and Susy stag
gered back, weak with laughter, and literally
rolled down the little slope, in which manoeuvre
their sons enthusiastically joined, leaving Aunt
Emma, a disgusted Goddess of Liberty, alone be
neath the flag-staff.

When they had picked themselves up and
climbed, still giggling hysterically, to the seat of
the experiment in applied patriotism, Miss Wil-
bour had composed herself, and was engaged in
the morning paper, which she had brought out
with her. Susy would have glided over the in
cident with the placidity known only to the
mothers of boys, but Tom could not resist the
opportunity of a final shot, and observed, as he
settled himself beside her :

You see, Aunt Em, it s all because we re
not Jews or Italians. I m sure we could have
pulled it off if we d been even as nationally
inclined as the Irish, perhaps but it s the
stern repression of the Anglo - Saxon nature
that"

"Anglo-Saxon grandmother!" Aunt Emma in
terrupted briefly; "it s all very well to joke, Tom,
but there won t be any Americans in spirit if
this keeps up, I can tell you."

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THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY

"Good Heavens, Aunt Em, what do you mean?
If we keep on rolling down hill ?"

"Miss Shaughnessy says that the the other
Americans are just as easy to train into it as the
Irish, if you take them young enough, but that
the older ones act foolish about it just like you
and Susy."

"The other Americans is good, anyhow," Tom
commented. "Who s Miss Shaughnessy not one
of the others, I take it?"

"She s the principal of the public school,"
said Aunt Emma, with a curious decision of man
ner, "and a very fine woman."

"Well, well," observed her nephew, "since when
have you been so interested in the public schools,
Aunt Em ? I didn t know women could be prin
cipals, anyway I thought they had to be men."

"I don t doubt you did," replied Aunt Emma
with a certain asperity, "but you were mistaken,
you see. Women are not entirely helpless, even
in this country."

"For Heaven s sake, I should think not!" Tom
declared in amazement. Even in this country !
Good Lord! If you can show me any country
where they re less helpless

"Finland," Aunt Emma articulated abruptly,
causing her niece and nephew to stare at her in
empty surprise.

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THB BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

"Finland! Why, Aunt Emma, what do you
mean?" Susy cried. "Do you mean the Finland
that the Sears s waitress came from?"

"I do," said Aunt Emma firmly, "though that
is a curious method of describing a country,
Susy."

"Well, but but what do the women do there ?"
Tom inquired vaguely, touching the short fuse of
a fire-cracker with a bit of the brown, pungent
light-stick known to youthful patriots as "punk,"
and tossing the cracker cleverly so that it ex
ploded in mid-air, to the delighted admiration of
his sons.

"Did you ask me what they did in Finland?"
Aunt Emma repeated, with a curious determina
tion in her manner, as the tumult and the shout
ing (to use the words of a modern bard) died.

"Why, yes," Tom returned carelessly "yes,
Aunt Em, since we appear to be conducting this
conversation on the lines of a nigger - minstrel
show yes, Brother Bones, I do ask you, What do
the women do in Finland?"

"They vote," said Aunt Emma shortly.

Tom dropped the punk from a relaxed hand,
and it burned, slowly and silently, but surely,
through his gray flannel trousers. Not till the
scorching heat stung his actual person did he
develop sufficient presence of mind to push it
8 109

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

off, and even the round, smoking hole in the light
fabric elicited only a casual murmur from Susy,
so utterly taken aback were the Wilbours by this
brief announcement of their relative.

The unusual silence impressed even the chil
dren, who turned inquiring faces toward their
elders, and Martin asked curiously:

"How do they vote, Aunt Emma?"

"With ballots," said Miss Wilbour firmly-
"with ballots, Martin. As you will see some day,"
she added with a concealed meaning of some sort,
evidently, all the more dreadful because no one
knew just what meaning it concealed.

"Ballads?" Martin repeated. "Like like
Young Lockervar has come out in the West ?
I like those. Does the Sears s waitress know that
one?"

"The two are very much alike," said Tom,
catching his breath at last -"at least somebody
or other once said he didn t care who cast one
if he could get royalties on the other, I believe."

"But as he was a man, there was nothing to
prevent him from doing both," said Aunt Emma
quickly.

Tom looked at her and shook his head sadly
once or twice. Then he took a cigarette from
his pocket, tapped the end slightly, lit it, and
puffed out a full breath.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"So that was it all the time!" he said reproach
fully. Oh, Aunt Em ! Aunt Em ! Married wom
en s property, indeed ! Child labor, forsooth !
And I never once suspected! Do you want my
vote, woman? Take it, take it! It never did
anything yet but keep me from winning a silver
cup on Election Day."

Aunt Emma nodded sadly, and yet as one who
takes a certain pride in seeing her deepest con
victions fulfilled.

"Just what Miss Shaughnessy says!" she
mourned. "The sex that puts a paltry game
of golf before its country s welfare is the sex
that stands selfishly in the way of in the way
of"

"The only other sex there is," her nephew fin
ished helpfully. "Go on, Aunt Em, get it out of
your system and don t mind me! Is this part of
the public - school instruction ? When did you
begin to feel this way? I believe you re planning
to be mayor before you die they always get in
with the schools."

"Not at all, Tom, not at all," she replied eager
ly, "that s just what the better class of women
don t want. We don t want to hold any office-
it s only to vote."

"The more fools you," her nephew remarked
impolitely. "Why not draw the salary while

in

THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

you re about it? And incidentally, dear aunt,
keep your eye on anybody of the name of Shaugh-
nessy when it comes to office-holding, and watch
em get away with it! There s no one, short of a
Reilly, to beat em! I ll bet you your friend the
principal knows the proper length of a mayor s
train this minute, and whether plaids or stripes
will be most worn."

"It s all very well to make fun, Tom," Aunt
Emma persisted, "but making fun is not arguing,
and can t be accepted as such any longer. As
the Reverend Byram Boskowitz told us at the
Normal Luncheon last week

"The Normal Luncheon!" Susy cried. "Was
that where you were the day you missed the
4.20? What on earth is a normal luncheon?"

"It is a luncheon of all the alumnae of the Nor
mal Training School for Teachers," Miss Wilbour
informed them quickly, transparently delighted
to have relieved her open mind of such unnatural
secrecy, "and there were over a hundred of them
there. Miss Shaughnessy gave me a ticket for
the speeches, afterward. She was toast-mistress.
And you ought to have heard Doctor Boskowitz,
Tom; he was wonderfully interesting and he
certainly is masculine enough for anybody," she
added conclusively.

"Really!" said Tom with what any one but

112

THB BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY

Aunt Emma would have regarded as suspicious
interest. "Can t you give us some of his mascu
line ideas?"

"Yes, indeed, Tom," she answered with pleas
ure; "they re here in this paper; I saved it
especially."

And, assuming her glasses, the good woman
read, with the impressive monotony dedicated
to newspaper interpretation, the following se
lection :

"Dr. Byram Boskowitz charges the Alumna of
the X Normal Training School with favoring
the harem idea of women not to the full Oriental
limit, biit in the sense of a confined, restricted life.

"And that was rather startling, Tom and
Susy," she interpolated, looking mildly at them
over her glasses, "but you will see he makes it
even stronger.

Your harem of the United States may be a lit
tle larger than the Mohammedan woman s," he told
them, "but your sphere is not a sphere it is not
a hemisphere; it is only a segment."

"Well, well!" said Tom with increasing interest,
"isn t he the startling old bird, though? Only
a segment, eh ? What did the Shaughnessy think
of that?"

/ know you are all devoted to your wash-tubs and
your children," Aunt Emma read on hastily, "but

"5

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

the question is whether these should absorb your
vitality."

"Hold on!" Tom interrupted at this; "didn t
you say this luncheon was in New York ? Wasn t
the Reverend Byram just a little, just a little,
teeny, weeny

"Well, Tom," said Miss Wilbour honestly, "as
Miss Shaughnessy said afterward, that was the
only weak point he made."

"Ah!" (her nephew eyed her closely) "not so
many wash-tubs, perhaps ..."

"Well, you see, Tom, they were all teachers
but eleven they married superintendents of
schools and only six of them had any children.
So, so well, that part didn t apply so much."

"No, I can see that," her nephew replied readily
enough. "So that was his only weak point, was
it ? I should say that was rather a good thing,
Aunt Em, for many points like that would be
likely to swamp the lecture, don t you think?
Well, go on. Did he add any more little
gems?"

Surely no woman should be satisfied to be merely
the mother of a family," Aunt Emma continued,
stopping involuntarily at his chuckling.

"Dear me, no indeed," he interrupted hastily;
"in the circumstances, I must say, dear aunt, I
should think the majority of the normal alumnae

116

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

- the very normal alumna? would have been
highly dissatisfied !"

"Tommy," Mrs. Wilhour warned him, "don t
be absurd!"

"Absurd! I?" Tom looked highly virtuous.
"With the Reverend Boskowitz on deck? Toots,
you wrong me!"

"I I don t think there s any more," Aunt
Emma began somewhat unconvincingly, but her
nephew snatched the paper with a quick move
ment from her hand, and defending himself easily
against her feeble attempts, read with great relish
the peroration of the lecture.

/ would invite you to become dangerous women
(for Heaven s sake, Aunt Em!) did you hear that
at some recent foregathering of females (females is
good perhaps they weren t Normal) a woman
from Boston warned her hearers against certain
women who try to improve social conditions as
dangerous women (look out for Miss Shaugh-
nessy, Aunt Em!) ? I would have you become dan
gerous women (I take it back, Aunt Em, you
needn t look out for her at all!) : dangerous to
hoary, senile injustice, antiquated civics, supersti
tion, disease."

Mr. Wilbour handed the folded paper cere
moniously back and drew a long breath.

"I m no palmist, dear aunt," he said at last,
117

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY

"but I would guarantee to give the Reverend
By ram a reading free, and urge him to look out for
a tall, strong woman resembling a trained nurse,
because if he ever meets one, it s all up with him,
if she has a straight-jacket with her. I can see
a large building like an institution, right from
here, looming up in his life."

"Of course, Tom, you can take all these things
the wrong way," Aunt Emma began.

"If you mean Boskowitz, I wouldn t take him
any way," said Tom decidedly -"not as a gift.
And I must say, Aunt Em, that if he has a vote,
you might as well have five."

"Perhaps the address wasn t quite so suitable
for just those women

"Will you tell me any women it would have
been suitable for? Lord! Harems and wash-
tubs and mothers of families to a pack of normal
school-teachers! Although," Mr. Wilbour added
thoughtfully, "what d you suppose he d have said
to Abnormal ones ? It makes my head swim!"

"D