CHAPTER VII.
THE BAD LUCK OF BUBBY CRYAWAY.
The Jimmyjohns are never happy when their faces are being washed. Perhaps it is no more than right to tell the whole truth of the matter, and confess that they cry aloud at such times, and also drop tears into the wash-basin; which is a foolish thing to do, seeing there is then water enough already in it.
One morning, as little Mr. Tompkins, the lobsterman, came wheeling his wheelbarrow of lobsters up to the back-door of the cottage, he met the Jimmyjohns scampering off quite fast. After them ran Annetta, calling out, “Come back, come back, you little Jimmyjohn Plummers!” Effie, standing in the doorway, shouted, “Turn back, turn back, oo ittle Dimmydon Pummers!” Mrs. Plummer, from the open window, cried, “Boys, boys, come and be washed before you go!” Hiram said nothing; but, by taking a few steps with those long legs of his, he got in front of the runaways, and turned them back, making motions with his hands as if he had been driving two little chickens. Mr. Tompkins took one under each arm, and presented them to Mrs. Plummer. Mrs. Plummer led them into another room. Strange sounds were heard from that room; but, when the ones who made those sounds were led back again, their rosy cheeks were beautiful to see.
Mr. Tompkins sat with a broad smile on his face. He seemed not to be noticing the two little boys, but to be smiling at his own thoughts: and, the while he sat thinking, the smile upon his face grow broader, his eyes twinkled at the corners, his lips parted, his shoulders shook; there came a chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, in his throat; and then he burst out laughing.
“I was thinking,” said he, “of a boy who—thinking of a boy I used to know a long time ago, down in Jersey, who—who tried to get rid of a small wetting, and got a big one. I shall have to tell you about that smart chap: I knew him very well. He was afraid to have his face washed, even when he had grown to be quite a large boy; and also afraid to have his hair cut. Sometimes in the morning, when his mother forgot to shut the windows before she began, people would burst into the house, asking, ‘What’s the matter? Anybody tumbled down stairs, or out the chamber-window, or got scalded, or broken any bones?”
“Why, did he cry as loud as that?” asked Annetta.
“Oh, yes! and pulled back, and twisted his shoulders, and turned his head the wrong way. I can tell you it was hard work getting him ready to go out in the morning. The boys called him ‘Bubby Cryaway.’ They were always watching for chances to wet him. If he passed near a puddle, splash would come a great stone into the water! When he staid out after sunset, they would begin to shout, ‘Better go in, Bubby: the dew’s a-falling!’ Sometimes they called him ‘Dry-Goods.’
“But this is what I was laughing about. One morning he thought he would start out early, before his sisters said any thing about washing his face, or cutting his hair. They had then been coaxing him for a long, long time to have his hair cut. So he crept down the back-stairs, and across the back-yard, and through a back-alley, which took him into the worst-looking street in town. Here he met a fellow named Davy Bangs. Davy Bangs’s mother kept a little shop in that street: I’ve bought fish-hooks of her many’s the time. Davy Bangs asked him if he were going to the circus. He said ‘No:’ he hadn’t any money. Davy Bangs asked him why he didn’t catch frogs, and sell them to the circus-riders. He asked Davy if the circus-riders would buy them.
“‘Yes, and be glad to,’ said Davy. ‘They eat the hind-quarters: that’s what makes ’em jump so high. And if you’ll go over to Dutch Meadows,’ said Davy, ‘to that little swamp they call Duck Swamp, you can dip up frogs with a dip-net; and, if you want a dip-net, I’ll lend you our old one.’