THE NEIGHBORS LOOKED ON IN BEWILDERMENT.
"That's a kinder queer pattern for a fence, ain't it?" queried a lad who came along. "Here's a mistake, anyhow," said he, pointing to a space between the fourteenth and fifteenth bars, which was twice as great as any interval before. "Left one out, here. Or be ye going to leave this cat hole for dogs to git through?"
"That's to make boys ask questions," was the only reply vouchsafed.
One old farmer advised him to "put all the bars of one length together. Ye'll find it a good deal easier." Jem thanked him respectfully for the advice but neglected to follow it. His aunt also came to the front door occasionally to watch his progress, but shook her head as if doubtful of either the ornament or utility of his work.
But Jem went on steadily with the undertaking until he reached the end of his line, having just enough bars to finish, as it happened, or perhaps as he had planned. At the bottom he then boarded the fence to cover the stakes and the irregularity of the iron bars, and then he announced the completion of the work to his aunt.
"'Tain't jest sech a fence as I had been thinking of, but I s'pose it'll answer, only it won't be twenty-four hours before them everlastin' boys 'll be drawin' of their sticks on it. But jest let me ketch 'em at it an' I'll—I'll"—In fact his aunt seemed more troubled than pleased with her new fence, but Jem only smiled at her apprehensions.
Our young fence-builder was up before the sun next morning, and down-stairs peeping through the front blinds. At length he hears the sound of tramping hoofs and a cow comes lazily down the road, cropping a mouthful of grass here and there. On a distant fence he hears the old familiar rattling. Will it be kept up when the new fence is reached? Ah! there is the cow-boy. He is stopping to examine the new construction. Now he is satisfied, swings the butt end of his whip against the first rod, and starts along. Jem listens eagerly. A sound fills the air as of some one playing a gigantic harp. The cow-boy stops in amazement at the effect he has produced. Recovering from his astonishment he goes a little further and again comes the sound of—a tune which seems to grow familiar to the dazed performer. Finally he starts off on a run to the very end of the fence, when the tune is finished.
At this point Jem is conscious of the presence of his aunt, craning her neck through the window for a look. "Where's the music a-playin'?" said she.
Jem, laughing, pointed to the boy who had gone back to the starting point and was about to repeat the performance.
"Here, you young rascal!" screamed Miss Elizabeth.
But the lad had started the tune again, and was not to be deterred by threats, and Miss Elizabeth stared surprised and speechless as the note vibrated with great resonance. As the air was finished the second time, the boy acted as if suddenly made crazy. He shouted, he threw his cap in the air and himself on the ground, screaming and laughing as he rolled over and over on the grass. Suddenly he scrambled to his feet and ran towards home leaving the cow to take care of herself.
"Mercy!" said Miss Elizabeth, "ef that don't beat anythin' I ever heard on! A fence that'll play a tune! A 'Yankee Doodle' fence! What ever got into your head to git up such a thing as that? You're your father's own son!"
By this time the cow-boy had returned with half a dozen companions, all as excited as himself.
Miss French was now as eager for the boys to draw their sticks on her fence as she had been unwilling before. The patriotic tune rung out again and again. The neighbors came to the scene and looked on in bewilderment.
"I knew that chap was up to sunthin'," Jem could hear the farmer say who had proffered the advice on the day previous. "He's old Joe French's boy, you know."
"You might a-known then he was smarter 'n lightnin'," said another.
"Guess I'll get him to build me a musical fence," remarked a third, "only I'll hav' 'Home, Sweet Home,' cuz that's Samanthy's favorite tune."
"He might fence in the meetin'-house with 'Old Hundred,'" suggested Deacon Mullen.
But the novelty soon wore away and Miss French began to tire of the ceaseless repetition. Besides the boys were too impatient to have their turns in playing to allow their predecessors to finish ere they commenced. To cap the climax, one boy, having concluded, turned about and ran the other way playing the tune backwards to the great disgust of both the builder and proprietoress. Miss Elizabeth rushed out.
"See here," cried she, "I guess you've played that fence long enough for one morning. Now you'd better go home. Go home, I say!"
But the boys were not to be deprived of such an amusement, and they hammered away furiously wherever they could get a chance. Unable to make any impression upon them Miss Elizabeth turned fiercely upon poor Jem and said in a voice that admitted no compromise, "Take it down, I can't abide it no longer! It's wus than the cows!" and with that she seized one of the bars, while Jem, alarmed for his marvellous fence, gave a great leap and sprang—out of bed, broad awake.
THE BUTTON BOY.
The wind blew as it never had blown before.
I think it blew that boy straight through the gate, up the path, through the door, and into the back parlor where the family sat. He stopped there, gave a little puff of spent breath and sat down. He had a box under his arm. It was flat and wide, a pasteboard box, and when he put it down all the family dropped their books and looked at it attentively. They were a very literary family and read so much that it was a great compliment to any box to have them put down their books when they had once taken them up.
"You haven't opened it yet?" asked the Mother.
"No," said the Boy scornfully; all the family had long ago agreed he had a high caste of countenance which this manner suited remarkably well—but he was not in the least conscious of it himself. "No, what's the hurry? plenty of time to look in it when I get home."
"It's a suit, a suit of clothes," calmly said the Sister, picking up her book again. Every one stared at the Sister who could see through a pasteboard box. "Somebody has made a hole in the bottom of the box and I see a button, a brass button," she explained.
True; there was a hole in the bottom of the box.
"He said, if I put the contents of this box to their proper use," said the Boy, "every day as long as they would bear it, I would not only learn something, but I should be his heir; so I might as well open the lid and see what is inside. I thought books, for Uncle knows I always put books to their proper use."
"Of course," said the Father; "it is books, no doubt."
"But," said the Sister, turning a page and reading all the time, "nobody puts brass buttons on books."
"I think you might as well open the box," said the Mother, "I think we are all curious"—
"Curious!" exclaimed the family indignantly.
"Curious-ly affected by your Uncle's making such a strange and trifling condition after our Boy's visit to him," went on the Mother. "But he is certainly very odd—I should really like to know why?"
"Don't take time to untie the knot," said the Father.
"Here's my knife," said the Elder Brother.
The Boy cut the string, the Sharp-eyed Sister looked over the top of her book, the Father put on his glasses, and the lid was lifted. Yes, it was a suit. A blue cloth suit, quite bright in color but of very fine material and good make. It consisted of a pair of knickerbockers and a tight jacket, and it was most extraordinary how the tailor had ever been able to put on so many buttons. The jacket was double-breasted and there were three rows down the front, a dozen in each, the size of a copper penny. There were some fancy slits in the back; buttons to the number of nine ornamented these. There were four on each sleeve; there were three on each pocket of the breeches, and four again appeared on the outside above the knee on each leg.
For a moment the family was silent.
"The buttons must have cost a great deal," said the Mother, finally, "I should really like to know the price a dozen."
"You couldn't have made a hole anywhere in that box without striking a button," said the Sharp-eyed Sister. She gave one a little knock, adding, "Perhaps they are gold."
"I think," said the Father, taking off his glasses and wiping them, "I think I would have a few removed."
"I have never observed anything like this in my Uncle's own dress," remarked the Elder Brother, "he certainly has peculiar taste in boy's clothing. I think I'll drop in on him and ask him a few leading questions as to his object."
"You will have 'to drop' after a special journey of twenty-five miles by rail," said the Sharp-eyed Sister, "and he won't appreciate your thirst for knowledge."
During this time the Boy had said nothing, but the scornful caste had entirely vanished from his countenance, for he had discovered a note in one of the pockets and had been reading it. The family now saw this, and, although they were not in the least hurry to hear its contents, they ceased their remarks at once to kindly give him a chance to tell them what he read. It was this: The suit was to be worn upon all occasions until it should be outgrown or worn out, no risk of damage was ever to be run with it, no allusion of any sort was ever to be made to it by the Boy or the family, and no alterations of any description to be made in it, unless to sew on a button when it should happen to come off.
"Wear that!" burst out the Boy scornfully, "does he think me an idiot? Why, I'd be the laughing-stock of the town. I should think he saw enough of me to know I have at least as much intelligence as most boys of my age."
"Very much more," said the Mother.
"I never saw such cloth," said the Sharp-eyed Sister, "it will never wear out, and you are not growing very fast either."
"I would not like to wear it myself; I don't even know as I would like to be in its society," observed the Elder Brother; "but neither would I like to lose fifty thousand dollars."
"Well now," said the Mother with her mild smile, "there aren't so very many; there aren't seven dozen, quite. They must be hollow for the suit isn't so heavy."
"They are," said the Sister. "I've been sounding them. Put on the thing and wear it. Don't be so silly as to throw away all that money. You can't wear it more than two years."
"Two years!" said the Boy, turning red.
"People will get accustomed to you by that time," urged the Father.
"It is very extraordinary," said all the family with a wondering air, and then they all fell to reading for a half-hour with their books upside down.
The Boy decided to wear the suit, and follow the conditions and wrote so to his Uncle.
His first appearance in the street in his new attire was greeted by a lady who stopped short and exclaimed, "Good gracious! what singular parents that child must have, and he actually looks proud of his dress too!"
"It's my caste of countenance," thought the Boy; but as he was quite unaccustomed to have it connected with his dress, and disgusted, beside, that he should be thought vulgar, he tried to alter the caste, though he turned very red when people looked at him. For some time it went on this same way; he caught glances and overheard remarks such as he had once applied to other people but which he never dreamed could enter people's minds in regard to him. Even his own family did not spare him. A dozen times he was on the point of casting off the glittering suit and renouncing the money it represented, but just as many times he thought he would try it yet another day. But to do this he learned he must be quiet and prefer the background and silence to the attention he was once so eager to receive.
One day he sat in the sunlight with a book trying to read and wishing very much to run outdoors and play with the rest of the boys, but kept back by an uncomfortable recollection of a great deal of badgering. The Sharp-eyed Sister was reading in the same room too, and every once in a while she would blink, and wink, and frown, and look about; finally she looked straight at him.
"You tiresome object," she cried, "do get out of the sun. I wondered what it was dazzling my eyes like the reflection of seven dozen looking glasses, and there it is your odious buttons."
The Boy got out of the sun without a reply; feeling a little restless he moved now and then.
"Dear me," said the Mother starting from her nap with a jerk, "you do jingle so."
After this the Boy concluded to go out. When his playfellows saw him they all set up a shout but he said to himself, "If I don't think about myself perhaps they won't think of me either," and he met them running with an answering shout. He had never worked so hard at forgetting himself before, and it answered so well that in the ardor of play, by and by, he forgot the buttons too. They began a game of leap-frog, and whether the fault of the back given him or whether his own fault, the Boy missed twice jumping and hurt his temper. He began to dispute about it with the Back, and presently they grew personal.
"Look here," cried the Boy angrily, "it was your fault, I say. If I were in fault don't you suppose I'd own it?"
"No," said the Back, shortly.
The Boy smiled scornfully. "'Cause you don't understand such a thing as owning up when you're in the wrong, eh? You act so. But all fellows aren't made on your pattern, I'd have you know!"
"Nor all clothes on yours, Buttons, I'd have you know," said the Back coolly.
The Boy glared at him and began to stutter, "You let my clothes alone, d'ye hear?"
"Well," said the Back, "you say I don't know how to give a back; I say, if I was buttoned up like you are, I wouldn't know how to take one. I put it to vote—all in favor please say, aye, contrary, no."
"Aye!" shouted the boys.
"Ayes have it," said the Back. "Now, you know, everybody knows you within ten miles by the name of the Button Boy, and I wouldn't seek any more notoriety if I was you—I'd be content to come in second best on leap-frog and say no more about it."
