CHAPTER II.
JOHN HENRY GETS A SUFFICIENCY.
Since Uncle Peter Grant was elected Mayor of Ruraldene one book ago, our family group considers it extremely disloyal to stay in the big town for more than four hours at a time. So with us it is a case of catching those imitation railroad trains at all sorts of hours and commute to beat the band.
Since I became a confirmed commuter I have sprained three watches and two of my legs trying to catch trains that are wild enough to dodge a dog-catcher.
The commuters are divided into two classes: going and coming.
One of the first rules for a commuter to follow after he locates the railroad station, and hikes there a couple of times to get in training, is to get a red and pink and blue hammock.
A hammock is a necessary evil in the country, because only by this means can the insects become acquainted with the new commuter.
The day after we first put up our new hammock Uncle Peter came rubbering around to look it over. He was all swelled up over being elected Mayor, and he dropped in the hammock with a splash. Ten seconds later the rope exploded and Uncle Peter made a deep impression on the stone porch.
Every mosquito in the neighborhood rushed to his assistance and tried to lift him up with their teeth.
Then Uncle Peter ran home and told Aunt Martha that Cinders, our bulldog, had tried to bite him.
The national emblem of the commuter is the lawn-mower.
The lawn-mower was invented originally for the purpose of giving the lawn a quick shave, and because it can't talk like a barber it makes a noise like the fall of Port Arthur.
I remember the first day I decided I would trim the vandyke beard on our lawn. Of course I got all mine, and I got it good. The result will always live in history side by side with the battle of Gettysburg.
The lawn-mower was sleeping peacefully in the barn when I rushed in and dragged it shriekingly from its slumbers.
Perhaps it was because I forgot to lather the lawn, but any way it was the hardest shave I ever had anything to do with.
That lawn-mower began to complain so loudly that the neighbors for miles around rushed to the rock pile and armed themselves for the fray.
The committee of citizens attracted by the screams of the lawn-mower came over to see if I was killing a member of the family or only a distant relative.
When they saw me boxing the ears of a stubborn lawn-mower they said my punishment was heavy enough, so they threw away the lynching rope and left me at the post.
Clara J. came out on the porch and said, "John, perhaps that lawn-mower would stop screaming if you used a little axle grease!"
"All right," I came back at her, "but it will take me an hour and a half to find out which part of the lawnmower will fit the axle grease."
Then I lifted the machinery up to examine its constitution and by-laws, and about two and a half pounds of wrought iron fell off and landed on my instep.
The wrought iron made good.
Then I tried to stand on the other foot, but I lost my balance and fell on the lawn-mower's third rail.
I never was so mortified in my life as when that lawn-mower began to saw its initials on my shin bones.
Every time I tried to get up I lost my balance, and every time I lost my balance the lawn-mower would leap up in the air and fall on my wish-bone.
When loving hands finally pulled us apart I was two doors and a half below unconsciousness, while the lawnmower had recovered its second wind and was wagging its tail with excitement.
After waiting for about ten minutes for me to come back in the
ring, the lawn-mower got impatient and began to bark at me in
Yiddish, so I decided that our lawn could grow whiskers like a
Populist farmer and be hanged to it.
Another splendid bit of local color in the life of some commuters is the tunnel which runs from Forty-second Street up as far as One Hundred and Fifty in the shade.
A ride through this tunnel on a hot day will put you over on Woosey
Avenue quicker than a No. 9 pill in Hop Lee's smoke factory.
In order to get out to Ruraldene I have to use the tunnel, and every time I use it it leaves something which looks like the mark of Cain across my brow.
The first day I went through that tunnel will always remain one of my hottest memories.
I lost nine pounds of solid flesh somewhere between my shoulder blade and Seventy-ninth Street.
The sensation is the same as a Bad Man's hereafter, including the sulphur.
First I choked up a little, then I coughed, then I stirred uneasily, and then I looked out the window and prayed for the daylight, and then I looked at my newspaper, but I couldn't read it, because the railroad company had found the gas bill pretty heavy last month and they were cutting down expenses.
Then I lost my breath, and when I got it back I found it wasn't mine.
Then I began to fan myself with my hat, but I stopped when the man behind me began to kick because I was handing him more than his just share of the tunnel gas.
Then I began, to choke up again, and then I coughed, and then I could feel something fat and mysterious playing hide and go seek around my brain, but outside all was black as ink, and only from the noise could I tell that the road was still paying dividends.
The air began to get close and thick like a porterhouse steak in a
St. Louis hotel.
I began to breathe like my wife crochets an open-faced stocking—one, two, three, drop one; one, two, three, four, drop one.
Then my blood began to curdle and cold chills ran up my back and liked it so well they ran down again.
My respiration was 8 to 1, my inspiration was 9 to 6 for a place, and my perspiration was like a cloudburst.
I had made my will with a few mental and Indian reservations, and was choking up for the last time when, with one mighty jump forward, the train shook itself free from the tunnel and once more we were out in the sunlight.
After picking enough sulphur off my clothes to make a box of matches, I reached gently over and tried to put the window up, but it was closed tighter than a sacred saloon on Sunday.
I gave the window-sash a couple of upper-cuts and a few short-arm punches, but it sat there and laughed in my face.
The brakeman came through, and I spoke to him about the window. He said, "The first time I see the president of the road I'll tell him about it!" and left me flat.
Once more I tried to open that window, but I only succeeded in opening my collar; so then I opened my mouth and made a short but spicy announcement, whereupon the old lady in the seat ahead of me got up and left the car.
Just then the train pulled into a station which I hadn't paid for, but I went out and took it, because it contained a little fresh air.
Some day I will mention the name of this railroad company and make them blush.
Well, after I left Bunch that afternoon, I ducked for the depot, and reached Ruraldene just in time to witness the beginning of a most painful episode.
The house was lighted up from cellar to attic. As soon as I opened the door I found our respected Mayor, Uncle Peter, and he was also lit up.
"It's a surprise, Johnny," he whispered hoarsely. "Clara J. is giving an entertainment for the benefit of the Christian Soldiers' League, and it's going to cost you two dollars to come into your own house."
It made an awful hit with Uncle Peter to see me cough up those two bones, but I said nothing and made good.
My wife called it a musicale, but to me it looked more like a fight.
With the help of Aunt Martha and Alice Grey, my wife arranged the programme and kept it dark to surprise the rest of the family.
It was such a surprise to me that I felt like doing a glide to the woodlands.
It was my second experience with a musicale, and this one cured me all right.
You know I don't care much for society—especially when it breaks into our bungalow and begins to scratch my furniture with its high-heeled shoes. But just to please Peaches I promised to go in the parlor and not be an insult to those present.
For awhile everybody sat around and sized up what everybody else was wearing.
Then they gave each other the silent double-cross.
Presently my wife whispered to Miss Cleopatra Hungerschnitz, whereupon that young lady giggled her way over to the piano and began to knock its teeth out.
The way Cleopatra went after one of Beethoven's sonatas and slapped its ears was pitiful.
Cleopatra learned to injure a piano at a conservatory of music, and she could take a fugo by Victor Hugo and leave it for dead in about thirty-two bars.
At the finish of the sonata we all applauded Cleopatra just as loudly as we could, in the hope that she would faint with surprise and stop playing, but no such luck.
She tied a couple of chords together and swung that piano like a pair of Indian clubs.
First she did "My Old Kentucky Home," with variations, until everybody who had a home began to weep for fear it might get to be like her Kentucky home.
The variations were where she made a mistake and struck the right note.
Then Cleopatra moved up to the squeaky end of the piano and gave an imitation of a Swiss music box.
It sounded to me like a Swiss cheese.
Presently Cleopatra ran out of raw material and subsided, while we all applauded her with our fingers crossed, and two very thoughtful ladies began to talk fast to Cleopatra so as to take her mind off the piano.
Then the Bingledingle brothers, known as Oscar and Victor, opened fire on us with a couple of mandolins.
Oscar and Victor play entirely by hand. They don't know one note from another, and they can prove it when they begin to play.
Their mother believes them to be prodigies of genius. She is alone in her belief.
After Oscar and Victor had chased one of Sousa's marches all over the parlor and finally left it unconscious under the sofa, they bowed and ceased firing, and then they went out in the dining-room and filled their storage batteries with ice cream and cake.
This excitement was followed by another catastrophe named Minnehaha Jones, who picked up a couple of soprano songs and screeched them at us.
Minnehaha is one of those fearless singers who vocalize without a safety valve. She always keeps her eyes closed, so she can't tell just when her audience gets up and leaves the room.
The next treat was a mixed duet on the flute and trombone between Clarence Smith and Lancelot Diffenberger, with a violin obligate on the side by Hector Tompkins.
Never before have I seen music so roughly handled.
It looked like a walk-over for Clarence, but in the fifth round he blew a couple of green notes and Lancelot got the decision.
Then, for a consolation prize, Hector was led out in the middle of the room, where he assassinated Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana so thoroughly that it will never be able to enter a fifty-cent table d'hote restaurant again.
Then Cornucopia Coogan arose and gave us a few select recitations.
She weighs 295 pounds and she was immense.
Just as she started to tell us that curfew would not ring to-night Uncle Peter winked at me, and we sneaked out and began to drown our sorrow.
Those musicales would be all to the good if the music didn't suffocate them.
After the crowd had left that night Peaches said to me, "John, Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha and I have been talking matters over to-day, and we've arranged a most delightful surprise for you!"
"What is it, another one of those parlor riots?" I asked, "If so, I want to tell you right now that you couldn't surprise me if Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha stepped out and did a song and dance in black face."
Peaches laughed.
"Oh! that isn't it," she chuckled. "It has something to do with the $5,000 you've saved."
"Oh! it has," I muttered faintly.
"Yes, Uncle Peter thinks we better not invest it in that house just now," she went on. "He has a better plan. You are to give him the money and he will invest it for you."
"Ah!" I said.
"But that isn't the real surprise," she cooed.
"It will do," I answered.
"Uncle Peter is so delighted that you have kept your promise to me not to speculate any more that he has planned—oh! I nearly told, and it's such a secret!"
Then I went over into a corner and got busy with my thoughts.
Bunch and I would have to get Petroskinski to work in a hurry.
We both needed the money.