Читать книгу Plain Mary Smith - Henry Wallace Phillips - Страница 11

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The next day my friend Mrs. Gray waylaid father, and told him fervently she didn't want me teachin' her Sandy none of my fool tricks.

And the old gentleman read me the riot act trimmed me to a peak, by word of mouth. There's where me and righteous conduct near parted company. I'm afraid I sassed the old man a little. I was awful sore, you know. Anyway, it wound up unpleasant. Father wouldn't listen to my side, as usual, and I'll leave it to any man that's tried to do the right thing and had it explode with him to realize how I felt. Boys have feelings. There's lots of folk don't believe it, but I've studied boys to a certain extent, and I'm willing to bet small sums they're almost like persons in that respect.

I got ugly under the pressure. Then I beat the head near off Anker's slimy little whelp, as the only relief in sight. That was dead wrong. He was 'way smaller 'n me, and hadn't done nothing at the time to deserve it. I went on father's principle that although no immediate cause was visible, yet there was plenty in the past and future to lick him for, so I lammed his both eyes black, bunged up his nose, and sent him hollering home. He met our schoolteacher on the way. Mr. Judson and I come together fairly regular, yet we liked each other. He was a square man, Samuel Judson, and he knew kids from thirty years' experience. He never made but one mistake with me, and he come out and begged my pardon before the whole school for that. Father sneered at his doing it—saying a teacher ought to uphold discipline, and to beg a boy's pardon was just inviting all kinds of skulduggery. Howsomever, Sammy Judson won me by that play. When he put the gad on me it was with the best of feelings on both sides. I can see the old lad now, smiling a thin little smile, sort of sourcastic, yet real kind underneath, whilst he twiddled the switch in his hands.

"Just let me trim a certain amount of foolishness out of you, and you'll make a fine man—a fine man, William," he'd say. And perhaps you think that small thin gentleman didn't know how to make a hickory bite! He could get every tender spot, by instinct.

Well, he met young Mr. Anker, as I was saying, and asked him what ailed him. Algy explained the foul way I treated him, careful not to let the tale lose anything.

"Ah!" says Sammy, "and what was this for?"

"For nothing at all—not a thing!"

Sammy looks at him from under his shaggy eyebrows. "I've often longed to thrash you for that same reason," says he, and marches on.

But lovely Peter! Father handed me back my mistreating Algy with interest on the investment. Pheeew! And talk! I was the most cowardly brute in the country—to assault and batter a poor, nice, gentlemanly little boy—a great big hulking scoundrel like myself—why, it passed all crimes in history. Old Uncle Nero scratching the fiddle, while the fire-insurance companies tore their hair, was a public benefactor compared to me.

That passed. I was only hindered, not stopped, in my reckless career of Village Pride. I'm a kind of determined cuss. But Fate sprung a stuffed deck on me. I did a piece of reforming really worth doing, but it cost me my home. Moreover, I was perfectly innocent of the intention. Don't it beat the devil? To tell it longhand, the play come up like this:

We had a party in our town who deserved a statue in the Hall—Mary Ann McCracken by name. She was a Holy Terror. Never before nor since have I seen anything like Mary Ann. I reckon she had about sixty years to her credit, and two hundred pounds to show for 'em. She ran a dairy up on the hill, doing her own milking and delivering, with only one long-suffering man to help out. I always remember that man walking around with one hand flying in the air, talking to himself, but when Miss Mary Ann said in her bass voice, "Pete! You Pete!" "Yessum, yessum!" says Pete as polite as possible.

The old lady used to bend slowly toward you, as if taking aim with her nose, and she fired her remarks through and through you. She'd sprung a plank somewhere, and had a little list to the side, but not at all enough so she couldn't take care of her own business and any other body's that come her way. When she went by father's house she used to roar, "Hark, froom the toomb—a doooleful sound!" because she hated everything concerning father's church, from the cellar to the lightning-rod. One day she was talking to mother, that she happened to like, snorting scornful, as was her custom, when father had the bad luck to appear on the scene.

"Adele Delatter," says Mary Ann, "what made you marry that man?" pointing a finger at father like a horse-pistol. "What made you marry him, heh? heh? Don't you answer me. Hunh. He ain't got blood in his veins at all; he turns decent vittels to vinegar. Hah. His mother's milk curddled in his stummick." She humped up her back and shook both fists. "He orter married me!" says she; "I'd 'a' fixed him! He'd orter married ME!" She b'iled over entirely and galloped for the gate. "I'd wring his cussed neck, if I stayed a minute longer!" she hollers. When she got in the wagon she rumbled and "pah'd" and "humphed." Then she stuck her red face out and yelled, "Orter married me. I'd give him all the hell he needed! Pah, pish, yah! Git out o' here, Jacky hoss, before you take to singin' hymns!"

She's the only human being I ever met that did just exactly what he, she, or it sweetly damned pleased to do. In that way, she's restful to remember. Most of us have got to copper, once in a while; but nothing above, below, nor between ever made her hedge a mill.

Well, I was walking home from Sunday-school with Miss Hitty one Sunday, trying to get points on my new system, when who should we see bearin' down the street, all sails set and every gun loaded, but Miss Mary Ann McCracken! The first blast she give us was:

"Ha, Mehitabel! Gallivantin' around with the boys, now that the men's give out, hey?"

Poor little Miss Hitty was flummexed fool-hardy. She stuttered out some kind of answer, instead of breakin' for home.

"Oh, my! my! my!" says Mary Ann, not paying the least attention to Miss Hitty's remarks. "My!" says she, "you'd ought to shuck them clothes. What you wastin' your time on boys fur? You was always hombly, Hitty; yes, but you're clean—I'll say that for you—you're clean. You stand some chance yet. You git married and shuck them clothes—but shuck them clothes anyhow!"